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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Child Slaves & Other 



oems 




Sp Sol. L. Long 



1909 

THE COURIER PRESS 

WINFIELD, KANSAS 



Entered according to Act of Cngress in the year 1909 

Bv SOL. L. LONG 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington 



© 

A 

AU a -271909 



a* ^V22S4 



T^reface 

I make no apology for this volume. I am not menda- 
cious enough to offer the conventional apology. The verses 
are not perfect. Neither is their author, nor is any one who 
shall read them. They will be criticised, both as to form 
and substance; but not by the one who has sailed my sea, 
and criticism by one who has nb| sailed my sea is hearsay 
and immaterial. ^.. 

It 'is well and commendable to strive toward perfection, 
but wherein is the sense, rhyme, or reason, in apologizing 
for not reaching it; when one knows, and the world knows, 
to a dead moral certainty, that perfection cannot be reached. 
All apologies for any sort of mental effort are either un- 
conscious, or premeditated, peans of egotism. 

Men have attempted to define poetry. It cannot be de- 
fined; and this, because it is an attempt to interpret life and 
life is eternal and being so is indefinable; not to be com- 
prehended, much less reduced to rule. Life can only be 
guessed at in part and poems, prose or verse, are only the 
writer's fleeting and imperfect glimpses of that elusive, eter- 
nal thing of which all things here are shadows on a screen, 
mere echoes of things real. Poets are only voyagers who 
have sailed life's present seas and noted their rocks, reefs, 
dangerous coasts and safe harbors, and poems are the log- 
book of the voyage. 

Whether or not any poem be of any sort of value to 
you; whether or not it appeals to you at all, depends upon 
whether or not you have sailed, are sailing, or about to sail, 
one of the seven seas of life voyaged by the one by whom 
the poem was produced. If you have not sailed the sea 
from whence the chart was drawn it will appear worthless 
— you w^ill not understand it. If you are sailing such sea, 
it will be of value before the end of the voyage. 

Never was a measure written, from the obituary in the 
country weekly, to the most sublime epic; from the fan- 



tastic things the youth conjures up and writes for the eyes 
of her who inspired them, to the measure that seems to lift 
the veil of the Eternal world, but what possessed some of 
the divine harmony which holds the spheres in place. Im- 
perfect? All to a degree. Deformed? Much. Worthless? 
None. Nothing was ever penned but that somewhere, some- 
place, w^as some one to w^hom it would appeal — some one 
who was hungry for that sort of food. The mere searcher 
after mechanical perfection will overlook this, but the one 
v^ho has gcized long into the unfathomable depths of the hu- 
man soul will know it to be true — know it as he does his 
mother's language. 

Save in very few instances the productions herein are 
just as they were first penned. It is my experience that the 
working over of verses, after the time when they had to be 
written has passed, results in mechanical perfection and 
spiritual deformity. 

I have, as near as practicable, followed the order of 
production in the arrangement of the verses in the book, 
and this for two reasons: One, to enable the solemn search- 
er after small things to obtain a text from which to moral- 
ize on the development, or degeneracy, of the bard— pro- 
vided, always, that he, or she, conclude there was a bard 
— and for a second, stronger and main reason: because 1 so 
desire to place them. 

Whatever others may say, I know that these are echoes 
— but echoes only. No chord is herein touched but wha* 
the writer has heard, in the surrounding vastness, louder, 
more triumpthant, more despairing, more tender, more 
hopeful, more entrancing strains, and not only heard them 
but saw the hand that swept the harpstrings. 

Holding these views, any apology for the verses would 
be an insult to the reader and a stultification of myself, and 
1 am not conventional enough to do either. If I am to lie 
of record 1 shall make it an original and not to the hackney- 
ed and conventional departure from truth. 



T^edication 

There are those who labor to strike the shackles from the limbs 
of men; making them free physically. 

There are those who labor to remove the fetters from the minds 
of men; making them free mentally. 

There are those who labor to banish trammels from the souls 
of men; making them free spiritually. 

These three classes are God's great, and only, visible trinity. 

To one of this trinity, who speaks the language of the "Old 
Frontier;" who has given his life and the strength of his manhood 
to the cause of human freedom; who has fought, and fought nobly 
from the cow-camp to, in and through, the legislative halls of his 
adopted State, for his fellows and a broader manhood, here and 
now— in this present world; who has been my friend from earl^ 
manhood; has had faith in me and my work ond has stood by me 
during the darkness and now holds my hand at the dawn; to 

HON. LOT RAVENSCROFT, 

of Ashland, Clark County, Kansas this volume is dedicated by 

'Vhe Jluthor. 



The Child Slaves 

God of life! I see the children, 

Maimed of brow and sunk of chest. 
They are toiUng in the east-land; 

They are toiUng in the west. 
Lifting to thy sky wan faces, 

Numbly longing to be free! 
Standing, helpless, in thy presence. 

As memorials to thee. 

God of Ufe! 1 see the children; 

Drooping hke the plant which dies! 
1 can see no gleam of promise 

In their sad and vacant eyes. 
Eyes from which is gone the lustre; 

Gone the hall mark of the soul! 
For which lack some one must answer 

When Thine angel calls the roll. 

God of life! 1 see the children; 

Shrunk of Umb and tendon cramped. 
Pace a sentry's beat, through darkness. 

Where the hosts of Greed are camped! 
Talon handed; primal visaged; 

Signs of that dread curse which waits 
Till our coveteousness, gold drunken. 

Draw it, cased, within our gates. 

God of Ufe! I see the children 

Murdered in the paths of peace; 

Crowded to the grave by legions. 
That earth's tinsel may increase! 



CHILD SLAVES 

Children like He, ■whom Thou sent us, 
Gathered round Him one far day. 

Saying: "Wouldst thou enter heaven? 
Let these show to thee the way." 

God of life! 1 see the children. 

Kept, by fraud, from life's chief goal. 
Of all things of earth the cheapest 

Seems to be an human soul; 
Of less worth than passion's promise. 

Bantered 'neath an evil star — 
God of life! our crimes against them 

Nearer hell are, than is war! 



Character 

If good be near you, and you find 

Your life toward it is inclined. 

Be to past lives and precepts blind; 

Unto it your own pathway trace; 

Look for no footprints; see no face 

Of other; nor trust to the grace 

Of gods or men, if you would stand 

With aught save borrowed wealth in hand. 

Thus it will be an wholly new 

And strange discovery to you; 

Wherewith you may all worlds subdue. 

And by subdueing grow to be 

A soul, broad-shouldered, grand and free, 

Untrammeled as the restless sea; 

So that, departing, men may scan 

Your hfe and say: " There lived a man." 



AND OTHER POEMS 



Stained 

I stand at the station as the gray light of dawn 
Comes stealing and deepening and widening on, 
And the trains, heavy laden, go rumbling by 
As the heralds of sunrise leap into the sky; 
While the outlines of things are from dimness released 
And show sharply against an incarnadine east; 
In the hush of the morning appears, doubly plain, 
On each object of vision a dark crimson stain. 

There is blood on the railsl In the smoke and the din 
Of the mills where they rolled them, they ladled it in; 
There is blood on the wires! in the place they were drawn 
'Twas by piracy filched from the brain and the brawn 
Of strong men, my brethren; men, joint heirs with me. 
To the fullness of earth, and the sky and the sea. 

There is blood on the engine and blood on the train 
And the ties, and the bed for them, carry a stain. 
On the panels and roof of the coach where I ride 
Are stains which no varnish nor gilding can hide! 
And the click of the wheels, as they rapidly roll. 
Repeat: " We have value; there's none to a soul." 

There is blood on the stones which men crush in the street. 
And stains on the pavement that rings 'neath my feet; 
The parks, brightly lit, where suave indolence strolls 
Are garnished by anguish and unshriven souls. 
There are stains on the buildings men raise in contempt 
Of their God — and his house is not wholly exempt! 

The fountains along the highway have their source 
In the Moloch of Greed, in the temple of Force, 



10 CHILD SLAVES 

And mixed half and half with their thirst quenching streams. 
Is the ichor of life and the substance of dreams; 
In proof that the pagan but changes his name 
And remains, as to ends, and in essence, the same. 

There is blood on the fields where the meadow larks sing; 
*Tis the record of God of where king strove with king; 
Where ignorance and hate, little knowing for w^hy. 
Have warred, bUndly warred, 'neath a pitying sky; 
And the blood of the w^orker, for idlers increase. 
Baptizes the walls of the temple of peace. 

There is blood on the carpets 1 have in my home! 

From the mills which grind children as grist they have come; 

On the crystal 1 own are deep, dark stains of red. 

And even my books chant a dirge for the dead — 

The dead who to others were dear as the one 

Who from my own side into dreamland has gone. 

There are stains on all things which surround us today 

And I question if water to wash them away 

Is held by the earth, or the deep outer void 

Where recompense waits for they who have destroyed 

The image of God by insidious wiles 

Of commerce; they who, in exchange for the smiles 

Of the wanton of trade and the god of increase. 

Have innocence slain in the temple of peace. 



AND OTHER POEMS 11 



Qod's (Sscrow 

Down the mystic, Shadow Valley, 

Where the leaves of healing grow; 
Where the strong and the decrepit 

And the aged and children go; 
There are half remembered visions 

Waiting, that they may entrain 
With the things which we have strangled 

In our maddened rush for gain. 

There are brains, benumbed by fancies; 

There are brains distraught and wild; 
There are vampire brains, grown w^eary 

Of a world they had defiled; 
There are brains, which love has fashioned; 

There are brains, deformed by woe; 
Down the mystic. Shadow Valley 

Where the leaves of healing grow. 

There are eyes, too soon grown weary 

Of the sunset and the dawn; 
Eyes, from which the present visions 

Drove the dread of farther on; 
There are eyes which never glistened 

At the sunset's afterglow; 
Dow^n the mystic, Shadow Valley, 

Where the leaves of healing grow. 

There are little hands, unwelcome; 

Night-tossed hands, without a name; 
There are palms, cursed and unholy 

In which stuck the price of shame; 



12 CHILDSLAVES 

There are locked hands, locked forever 
By the things which grovelers know 

Down the mystic, Shadow Valley 
Where the leaves of healing grow. 

There are fingers, young and rosy; 

There are fingers, gnarled and old; 
There are children's talon fingers, 

Fashioned by the lust for gold; 
There are fingers, cramped and knotted; 

Fingers crippled by a blow, 
Down the mystic, Shadow Valley 

Where the leaves of healing grow. 

By the sword which guards God's Eden; 

By His phantom foot and horse; 
By the joys of highest heaven; 

By the depths of earth's remorse; 
We must meet these! They are waiting. 

Waiting there, in God's escrow; 
Down the mystic, Shadow^ Valley 

Where the leaves of healing grow. 



^eyond the T^ecos 

Vistas stretching to'ard the sunset; 

Vistas reaching to'ard the dawn; 
Flowers and palms and palms and flowers; 

Haze wrapped roadways leading on. 

Crag and peak and green shot mesa 
Flung against a sapphire sky; 

Fall and sweep and rush of water 
With the brown trail winding by. 



AND OTHER POEMS 13 



"UheCryofUhe Wild 

God, give me freedom! freedom! 

If but for a day — an hour, 

1 am tired of the chieftain's bondage. 

Of the shackles of mooted power; 
I am tired of the alien peoples 

I have bartered my soul to save — 
The one who brings freedom to others 

Is ever himself a slave; 
A slave to their childish phantoms. 

Their wayward and witless ways, 
Fashioned by sire and grandsire 

Between darkened walls of days — 
O God, give me freedom! freedom! 

Though it be but the spurious thing 
Possessed by the low browed peasant 

Who daily curses his king. 

God, give me freedom! freedom! 

Let me be, as I once was, free, 

1 am tired of the iron purple 

Of the guardians degree; 
Let me walk, if for only a moment, 

With the children, the primrose path, 
Unheeding alike the sunshine 

Of smiles, or the cloud of wrath. 
Grant this and though thereafter. 

In the galleys, with added pain, 
I pull the oar of a leader 

And wear the heaviest chain, 
I'll remember, with joy and gladness. 

The kindness of thy decree — 



14 CHILDSLAVES 

This memory will lighten my labors 
Through all eternity, 

O God, give me freedom! freedom! 

If for only a runner's breath, 
I'm tired of the moulded heirlooms 

That came at my father's death; 
Tired of the pride of family 

I must stretch to measure to; 
Tired of the ancient wheel ruts 

In the lanes I stumble through; 
Tired of the thoughtless censure, 

Of the one who stands alone. 
By the sw^art and darkened children 

Of the man of the age of stone — 
O God, give me freedom! freedom! 

What is your eternity, 
Or any thing hereafter 

Unless I again be free. 



Qive Us T^esults 

" Give us results! " By what token 

Do you ask that w^e give you them? 
By the reasoning of Japeth's ruthless clan; 

Or the stealth of the tribe of Shem? 
By the empty, unrequited. 

Hard hands of the sons of Ham? 
By the altar fire of marauding sire, 

Or the price of a purchased dam? 

By the Spirit of troubled waters 

Shall we bring you, from over seas, 
The things which your sodden trader's breed 



AND OTHER POEMS 15 

Cry for; from their bended knees? 
Shall we bring them thence with never 

A care, nor fear, nor tear, 
For the hearts we break nor the graves w^e make. 

In the face of the reckoning year? 

" Give us results! " Will you herald 

Them forth and grow strangely dumb 
As to devious ways and artful means. 

If by such, perchance, they come? 
The wear of the way takes substance 

From the wheel and adds thereto. 
In flake and streak, the things which speak 

Of the mire it traveled through. 

" Give us results! " Aye give us 

Results; but let them be 
The unstained ones which only come 

When the soul and the hand are free! 
The results of the Great King's highway — 

The way where men are made; 
Not the soiled ones by which Cain's sons 

Chain Death to their shoulder blade! 



plunders 

Today I saw a little waif, one of the submerged millions. 

With unshod feet walk down a street 

Where men guard useless billions; 

To make a Moloch of their trade, and to their shrine of barter 

Bring man and matron, boy and maid, a custom cursed 

I looked upon her weazened face, [martyr; 



16 CHILDSLAVES 

From which the light of childhood 

Had faded, leaving no more trace 

Than zephyrs in the wildwood; 

And while 1 looked the heavens lowered 

And nature's forces thundered; 

"This is the cruse where wrath is stored, 

Because mankind has blundered." 

Today I saw in dimlit piles, with many a steel-barred case- 
Men walk alone and there atone [ment, 
For some forbear's abasement; 

By process I cannot describe, an unrequited labor 
They learn the tongue of Ishmael's tribe, that knows no 
I looked upon them moving near — [friend nor neighbor; 
Guard-led and guard-surrounded — 
Unto the Chapel, there to hear 
Confusion worse confounded; 
And while I gazed a still voice came 
Saying; "Why have you wondered? 
That this should be done in my name 
Is proof that men have blundered." 

1 scanned the record of my past for promise of the morrow, 

And found each page, in youth or age. 

Blotted by some great sorrow; [binded 

By some fell hand unseen, unknown, a burden has been 

Upon my shoulders and alone I've walked life's highway 

I stumble in the way, and where [blinded. 

1 should walk prince and sovereign 

I crawl, a vassal, bowed with care, 

For usurpers to govern; 

I often question in my dole 

Why joy is from me sundered. 

But all the time my weary soul 

Knows somewhere men have blundered. 



AND OTHER POEMS 17 



'^he Joyless ^en 

They have scraped the fins from the mountainside 

And burrowed it Uke the mole; 
They have warped and lashed great iron staves 

To a prostrate totem pole. 
They have raised the trail across the marsh 

And eased it over the hill; 
They have stalked the mountain, as caribou 

Are stalked by the ones who kill. 

They have planted their uncarved totem poles 

Like stakes for the salmon's run. 
And crowned them with a giant's bead 

That glistens in the sun. 
They have planted them thick, from shore to crag, 

In long and w^inding strings. 
And bound them firmly, crown to crown, 

With the iron sinew that sings. 

Flung sinuous, like a driver's lash, 

Or like the land fowl flies, 
Is the hot, black breath of the wondrous sledge; 

Their sledge of iron that cries; 
That cries Uke a wounded walrus bull 

When the spear has pierced his side, 
And pants, as the lead dogs pant, for the weal 

Of a tribe unsatisfied. 

And down where the walrus used to bask 
They've builded themselves a town — 

These men with the cold, stern, somber face, 
Who work when the sun is down. 



18 CHILDSLAVES 

And down where the salmon berries grew 

And ripened beneath the skies, 
They've builded a hut for the wondrous sledge — 

Their sledge of iron that cries. 

They are wondrous men, these joyless men; 

These men from the summer lands; 
Who give their lives with a smile and cheer 

To feed the work of their hands! 
These men w^ho conquer the frozen seas 

And harness the powers of air; 
Who war with the land and curse their god 

Should he loose the thongs of their care. 

They have stretched their hands toward the stars 

And plucked them from the skies. 
And hung them low to light the trail 

Of their sledge of iron that cries. 
They have broken the pack in the windward straits 

And cloven the heart of the floe; 
They have chained the glacier to its bed 

And made a toy of the snow. 

The walrus cries from the far off ice 

And the seal moans by the sea; 
The new has come with these joyless men 

And the old goes out with me. 
They will harry the silence out of the north 

And w^innow it in between 
The hoar, white edge of my father's land 

And the edge of their land of green. 

They will break the peace of a thousand years, 

With bugle, and horse, and drum; 
To pave the way that they may pray 

For the peace of a time to come. 



AND OTHER POEMS !9 

They will parcel the land by the river's thread 

And hold it by stake and stone; 
They will speak to the hungry, with the wind, 

And watch how the smoke is blown. 

They will break the thongs of their father's pledge 

To kill on the border line; 
They will bring us their Book, to buoy our souls. 

And sink us with their wine. 
They will take our fathers burden off 

And bind upon our back. 
One strange and new, which we cannot bear. 

And curse us for our lack. 

They will take the gods that we have known — 

Our gods of sea and land — 
And give us their own, whom even they 

Seem not to understand. 
They will take the legends from my tribe; 

Unpeople river and brook. 
They will break the law of a thousand tongues 

And judge us by a book. 

They will dim the law of the otter's slide 

With precept of their own. 
And barter the lire of a fevered soul 

For the glow of a polished stone. 
They will raze the mountain and lift the earth 

And ravage the far, vast skies; 
For the w^eal of the sinew that sings and sings 

And the sledge of iron that cries. 

The lead dogs will forget the trail — 

The legends of my clan 
Will die, as youth born visions die, 

For there will be no man 



20 CHILD SLAVES 

Of all my tribe to hand them on; 

Much less one to receive 
Them from another — they teach ill 

Who do not first believe. 

I have watched beside my father's grave; 

But none will watch by mine. 
I have learned my dogs the trail; their whelps. 

Like the white bears cubs, will whine 
Unmastered; things which came 

With peace will go with stress, 
And in the lodge of the joyless men 

Is much of forgetfulness. 

The squaws will halt at the trader's door; 

Our strong young men will draw 
Nigh to his oracle and for 

A precept trade their law. 
There's portents of misfortune, dire 

Mischance and fearsome things, 
That come with the iron sledge that cries 

And the wondrous sinew that sings. 



Vhe Call of the West 

I have heard the West a-calling; 

Clearer, sweeter than a bride's, 
Comes a voice from out the vastness 

Where the man-grown boy abides; 
Where the swreet, the strange, the splendid. 

Lion-hearted, noble boy, 
Like a prince rides ways of manhood. 



AND OTHER POEMS 21 

Bearing with him youthful joy; 
Bearing with him all the jewels 

Of a mother's sympathy. 
And a Faith, unavred, unfaltering. 

In his God and Destiny; 
Strong to ride the dusty highway; 

Strong to linger by the stream; 
Strong to know his own and claim it; 

Strong to do and strong to dream. 

1 have heard the West a-calling; 

Whatsoever bauble prize 
Waits for me, its needs must seek me 

Underneath the Western skies — 
Seek me where the bouyant promise 

Of the earth, the sky, the air. 
Is not veiled; where hearts are stronger 

Than the spirit of despair. 
It must seek me, if it find me. 

In the free and boundless West; 
Where the base, the false, the hollow. 

Find no place where they may rest; 
Where the winds give wider learning 

Than is held by any school, 
And "survival of the fittest," 

Not "the strongest," is the rule. 

What if there be bleak prairies? 

What if desert wastes of sand? 
What if God's own workshop stillness 

Like a mantle cloaks the land? 
What if strong suns blister daily? 

What if winds be chill at night? 
There, at least, no forced convention 

Makes grotesque all primal right; 



22 CHILD SLAVES 

There the hands, however wayward, 

Have not learned to grasp and hold 
Only things which stand as tokens 

Of the man-made power of gold. 
There the heart leaps free and youthful; 

Stranger to all bars and bounds — 
O, I've heard the West a-calling 

And there are no other sounds. 



ji Souvenir 

*Twas a summer long ago 

That I wrote a billet deaux — 

Youth-fed summer — when the world was on its knees. 

And 1 hid it near the stream — 

Grave and cradle of our dream — 

And you got it and you read it Belle Marquise. 

Though you turned and gave your hand 

To a league or tw^o of land; 

Leaving me to bear my burden over seas; 

You have kept it through the years, 

With their cares and fears and tears; 

You have kept it and you read it Belle Marquise. 

Though rebellion and unrest 

It awakens in your breast 

As you drain the cup you've chosen to the lees; 

Though it jeopardize your name 

You will keep it from the flame — 

Aye, you'll keep it and you'll read it Belle Marquise. 



AND OTHER POEMS 23 



^estamentry 

I'd rather give you a free mind. 

My boy, to have and hold. 
Than all the lands in all the earth, 

Or all its worthless gold. 

Then take your father's words, my boy. 
Let them be food and drink. 

Act as the freemen ever act, 
Think as the freemen think. 

Let no name bind you to the past, 

Nor conjure from afar; 
Avoid, as though a pestilence. 

The fever born of war. 

A hut beside a summer stream. 

Beneath the arching skies, 
Is better than a palace, boy, 

Where mind and manhood dies. 

Gather the flowers along the way. 
Rest 'neath each pleasant tree; 

'Tis well to be forehanded, boy. 
But better to be free. 

Rather than, in the purple clad. 
Reap where you have not sown. 

Go barefoot, but go like a Prince, 
To claim your right, your own. 

There's little in the boast of kings, 

There's little in a name. 
The velvet hand is oftenest 

The tainted palm of shame. 



24 CHILD SLAVES 

Be strong, be grand, the puny things 
That hold weak minds in awe. 

Are not for you, therefore, be free, 
Obey the primal law. 

Are not for you — and why? forsooth, 
Behind both you and me, 

A thousand generations stand 
Of common folk and free. 



^he Hero 

Disaster's track behind his back and sodden sky ahead; 

Yet through the wrack he will not slack his hand, though 
hope be dead; 

He will not quail, though Fate may rail and Fortune guard 
her bars; 

He knows the trail to his entail swings past them, to the 
stars; 

The pace may kill, but upward still, his feet, flame shroud- 
ed, tend 

Toward the hill from which he will unto reward ascend. 

The clouded mind will worship kind; it has done since the 

morn 
In which the wind came strong behind the sun and Cain 

was born; 
Though it conceive, and real believe, a mirage, big with dole; 
Though it may grieve and pluck his sleeve, upon his fran- 

chised soul 
Is the red mark of they who hark not to the halt and lame; 
Nor to the dark, but fan their spark of life into a flame. 



AND OTHER POEMS 25 

More than on steel the old world's weal hangs on his potent 

arm; 
And true and leal through each ordeal he guides and 

shields from harm. 
It is his fate, without the gate, unguarded and alone, 
To toil and wait, that church and state may come into 

their own; 
His campfire's gleams, in conquering streams, fling back 

the Cossack shade 
That round it teems, and of his dreams a future age is made. 

The torch, the night, cannot afright: he is not fear ordained. 
He sees the Hght, hid from sight of hunchback souls and 

chained! 
Gethsemane is for the free; not for the shackled slave, 
And through it he presents a plea which bars death and 

the grave. 
The copper's toss that wins earth's dross, he counts an idle 

thing; 
As gain, not loss, the middle cross, if he die there a king. 



What "Profit? 

They have cut the plains in a thousand fields 

And parcelled them out among 
The brood who love the clang of steel 

And the sound of a brazen tongue; 
The ones by whom a flower's perfume 

Is flouted and scorned and spurned; 
Whose nostrils can only sense the reek 

Of the earth; when a furrow is turned. 



26 CHILD SLAVES 

They have given to them a parchment power; 

By v^hich they may have and hold 
The right to follow^ a plow^ in peace, 

Until they are bent and old; 
The right to rest in a fetid room, 

Shut in from the arching sky; 
To say to their fellow: "All this is mine; 

By the power — ", of a printed liel 

They will lock the door of their empty souls 

And lean on the things outside, 
And gladly walk in the way of pain 

If the ones who praise may ride! 
They will wear the shackles of class and caste; 

Of their acres; their herds; their flocks; 
If they may ride to the grave in state 

And sleep in a polished box. 

They will trade the strength of their manhood's year* 

And barter their w^omanhood. 
For a cup of gall, from a velvet hand. 

If they be but told: " *Tis good." 
They w^ill pour their sweat at Mammon's shrine 

And give him their flesh and blood. 
And rail at the Hindoo mother who flings 

Her child to the Ganges* flood. 

They have cut the plains in a thousand flelds — 

But where does the profit lie 
If wealth increase a thousand fold 

And mind and manhood die? 
What profit to earth; or what to man. 

Is there in a thousand fields, 
If the opiate and the gear of a slave 

Are all that the thousand yields? 



AND OTHER POEMS 27 



For What? 

We met; he is more gray today, 

Five added years have worn 
His hfe along the dusty way 

Where hope dies and is born. 

Upon his brow and in his face 

Was then small sign of care 
And only just a ghostly trace 

Of silver in his hair. 

Today it took a second sight 

To catch a glimpse of gold; 
A gleam like the faint hint of night 

Which shadows sometimes hold. 

He spoke, as when greeted last. 

Of something, "just ahead," 
I did not question of the past; 

I knew that it was dead. 

Knew by the lines which seamed his brow 

And spoke of tears unshed; 
Knew by his leaping from the now. 

Toward the, "just ahead." 

And as I called that other year 

To mind, my wonder rose; 
That he should wear life's galling gear 

For only board and clothes! 

That he should barter present joy 
For phantoms, "just ahead — " 

Should trade the free heart of a boy 
For withered things and dead. 



28 CHILD SLAVES 



What Matters 

It matters not what was his name, 

Nor where his place of birth. 
Nor by what lineage he came 

Unto this present earth; 
But that his soul was strong and true, 

Broadshouldered, grand and free. 
It matters, and will matter through 

Our God's Eternity. 

It matters not his father's place, 

Nor what his mother's dower. 
Nor contour of a grandame's face, 

Nor yet a grandsire's power — 
Whether barefoot, half clad and loathed. 

He may have trod the Hng, 
Just so, however shod or clothed. 

He trod it like a king. 

It matters not what was his tongue. 

Nor that he understood 
The whyfore of the shrines among 

His common brotherhood; 
But that he stooped to play the knave. 

Or filled the narrow span 
Between the cradle and the grave 

With stature of a man. 

It matters not Faith held the helm. 
Or whether doubts and fears 

Came, like a tidal wave, to whelm 
And buflfet through his years; 



AND OTHER POEMS 29 

But that with tempest hovering near. 

Mid spray and wrack of sky. 
Duty need call but once to hear 

The answer: "Here am I." 

It matters not if oft he fell, 

Or stumbled overmuch, 
Or wavered on the brink of hell, 

Or felt the Spoiler's clutch; 
If falling gave him charity 

And wavering brought him will 
To from the deadening clutch shake free 

And stumble upward still. 

It matters not if swift his soul, 

Or laggard on the way, 
Toward the universal goal 

Which all must touch some day; 
If he have kept his child heart pure 

And did the best he could; 
Have learned to suffer and endure 

For all his brotherhood. 



He Was My Friend 

He was my friend. He never knew the cost 

Of his faith in me. Whatsoe'er he lost 

By reason of his fealty, was to him 

An undiscovered country. Enemies, who tossed 

My name upon the flotsam covered breast 

Of public rumor, fed by minds as dim 



30 CHILD SLAVES 

As those which first, above the murky rim 

Of dawning reason, saw, between the w^est 

And east, man's star of promise and of destiny, 

Were his foes also; foes unto the end; 

With whom he made no truce; he was my friend 

Who gave me freedom; as himself was free. 

He was my friend, and in return I gave 

Him freemen's homage. Homage of the slave 

Is not the tribute w^hich friend takes of friend, 

No more than would the valient and the brave 

Take tribute from a woman, whom his arm 

Had plucked from dangers; dangers which portend 

Her utter ruin and a wanton's end. 

I would have suffered evil, if thereby all harm 

Could have been barred from out the sacristy 

Of his pure soul, and since beyond my ken 

He now has passed, this present life has been 

More fearsome to me than Eternity. 



Chance 

I met him under a foreign sky; 

The scion of a moribund race; 
But full of the fire that will not die 

And the lines of the thoroughbred in his face. 

It was all by seeming chance we met. 

And seeming chance that I took his hand — 

" Mere hap," the w^orld would say, and yet, 
We two seemed dimly to understand. 

He was alien in land and blood to me 
And unto his kin and his country leal; 



AND OTHER POEMS 31 

But his mind was broad and his soul was free 

And each of us held the same ideal. 
What mattered it then, the creed he held? 

What mattered it where his altars were? 
He was a spirit born brother of mine, 

With a soul like the Infinite, strong and rare. 
We, haltingly, spoke in a foreign tongue. 

Some meagre words at our command, 
But out of the pauses between them sprung 

A language which each could understand. 
What mattered it then, a king's frontiers 

Or the boundary stones by a people set? 
We met, full heirs of all lands and years, 

And when we parted our cheeks were wet. 



The Warriors 

From the chief who won and held his crown 

By the strength of a wooden spear, 
Up to the king who bounds his realm 

With a moveable frontier; 
The spirit of war has walked with man 

And footsore, in his dole. 
He views it not as the aftermath 

Of the struggle of his soul. 

Behind each war that wastes the blood 

And the treasure of mankind. 
Is the sharp, fierce pain of a soul's travail 

In the bivouac of the mind; 
The cause may rank as a woman scorned 

Or a people defied, indeed! 
We speak of the color of bud and bloom, 

But the hue is in the seed. 



32 CHILD SLAVES 



Caveat 

Give your life's wine freely 

To the mob in the World's broad road; 
The haunting fear, lest they fail to cheer, 

Will be ever your keenest goad; 
Sell them the soul God gave you; 

They will rend it at their feast! 
Then should you fare to the lion's lair 

Call not the lion; "beast!" 

Go bear their self-formed burdens; 

Go walk the way of the Cross 
For them and theirs and they and their heirs 

Will exult at your loss! 
There are wolves in the open country, 

And lank, lean wolves in town; 
That will lick your hand when you upright stand 

And fang you when you're down! 

Desire for the bay and laurel 

Is good; but, O friend, beware! 
It is not fame, their wild acclaim. 

And their greasy caps in air. 
Serve them, if so it please thee. 

But their path is scattered o'er. 
Unmarked by stones, vvrith the crumbling bones. 

Of they who have served before. 



AND OTHER POEMS 33 



When "^is <^ine to Journey Outtoard 

Lord, when you command; "Attention!" and then; "For- 
ward! forward march!" 

And I catch the step in passing underneath the shadow 
arch; 

Let the hghtnings flash before me, let the deep voiced 
thunders roll. 

Keeping time and setting measure for the cadence of my 
soul, 

And I'll walk the Shadow Valley — walk it like a lance at 
rest; 

Walk it as all they have walked it who've been nurtured 
by the West. 

When 'tis mine to journey outward — aye, to journey out 

and far. 
To Thy city where the records of my days and actions are; 
Let it not be in the stillness, or when summer winds rush 

warm, 
Take me, if it be Thy pleasure, in the wildness, in the 

storm; 
And I'll hail it with all gladness, mounting on the shrieking 

wind. 
With no sigh, nor tinge of sadness, for the world I leave 

behind. 

I forget sometimes of mornings; I remember not at noon; 
I am listless in the evening when the night birds call and 

croon; 
But your storm clouds, massed menacing, in the flashings 

dimly gray 
And their twisted, azure columns, moving ever and away; 



34 CHILD SLAVES 

Call me back to life and duty — strengthen memory's 

weakened span, 
Till I stand, unawed, before Thee in the stature of a man. 

When the days are calm and peaceful and a stillness, like 

a shroud, 
Wraps the earth, 1 long for livid flashings, mirrored on a 

cloud — 
Long for night and wind and tempest, flying scud and 

drive of rain. 
And the tall oak of the forest writhing like a thing in 

pain — 
There is that within the tempest which is spirit kin to me; 
That which lifts me nearer heaven, draws me closer unto 

Thee. 

Call me then, if so it please Thee, when the winds are 

fierce and high 
And Thy forces rush to battle, in the domain of the sky; 
When the clouds, in shapes fantastic, dash themselves 

through upper air. 
And the tempest, with wild voices, crowds its terror 

everywhere; 
Call me then, and I will count it as the chiefest of my 

gains, 
And will tread the way appointed like a born Prince of 

the Plains. 



^/ze Qenius 

Give him the wild, strange fever 

That only the few have known. 
And he'll learn the tongue of the wandering stars 

And walk by himself, alone; 



AND OTHER POEMS 35 

Yea, he will be a stranger, 

An alien in the land. 
His heritage — the rabble's curse. 

For none of them understand. 

Give him the wealth of India, 

He will scatter it far and wide; 
For the grief of the world is his to know. 

While its joy must be denied; 
His heart is the old world's magnet 

To gather each tear and moan. 
And the pulsing heart of the hopeless poor 

Is an answering beat to his own. 

Give him the wreath of laurel. 

He will smile, but he knows that he ^ 

Is the sum of the past and present. 

And beyond, to eternity; 
Yea, he must feel the future 

As the coarser feel the now; 
His is the great collective brain 

And the individual brow. 

Give him the love of woman; 

Go bind him and none can tell. 
Whether he'll walk with the Saints of God, 

Or sink to the deepest hell; 
Yet it were better to bind him. 

Far better, for be it known; 
If 'tis sorrow to walk the way as twain 

It is black despair alone. 

Give him an open entrance. 

Or a door of the clearest glass; 
For he cannot know the knock of they 

Who come with the things that pass; 



36 CHILDSLAVES 

Yea, he stands a giant 

In learning, both strange and wild, 
But in the lore of the counting house 

The man is only a child. 

Give him a place among you, 

Or banish him far away, 
His dreams will live when the things you raise 

Are crumbling to decay; 
Yea, he is only a dreamer, 

A child of a world-old pain, 
But though the earth dissolve in mist 

The dream will ever remain. 



jind the Jngel Said 'Write' 

Life is not for wounding, brother; 

Better heal the thoughtless hurts. 
That are given by the rabble. 

Ignorant of just deserts. 
Aye, too often do we censure 

When we do not understand 
All the force behind the failings — 

Brother, w^rite them on the sand. 

Write it on the sand my brother; 

Whatsoe'er the action be. 
Emanating from thy fellow. 

Standing between he and thee. 
Only God may keep the record; 

Only He may understand 
Action, and if any fault thee; 

Brother, write it on the sand. 



AND OTHER POEMS 37 



The Sound of The Master Chord 

In the mellow, sound swept transept. 

Of the hall of melody. 
Gathered once all of the gifted 

In the embrace of the sea; 
And a thousand harps re-echoed 

All the music of the spheres. 
Weaving into pulsing garlands 

Melodies from all the years. 
Long each gathered there had labored 

To produce a perfect strain; 
To distill a mystic essence 

From earth's pleasure and earth's pain. 
Suddenly each harp was silent, 

For without, upon the sward. 
Stood a child who, smiling, sounded 

On strange pipes, the Master Chord. 

Once a maiden, housed securely 

With the favored few apart. 
Listened to a thousand suitors 

Tell the old tale of the heart; 
But she scorned them all, and rising. 

Wondering at her disdain. 
Each, within the vaults of manhood. 

Locked his secret and his pain; 
But a swineheard called unto her. 

From the highway: "Follow me! " 
And she looked not back but answered: 

"Unto all eternity," 
And they wondered that she followed 

Through bleak ways and called him: "Lord, 



38 CHILD SLAVES 

But within her heart had sounded, 
Once for all, the Master Chord. 

Once a youth, hot and impeteous, 

Set his lance at rest and hurled, 
With his gage, the young man's challenge 

In the face of all the world. 
Many answered and he met them 

In the lists and on the field, 
And they knew him as one worthy, 

By his scars and dented shield; 
But one day, w^ith princes shouting 

And his lady's eyes aflame; 
With his sovereign loudly caUing, 

Over all the din, his name, 
Suddenly he wheeled and ordered 
His victorious pennant lowered, 
For, within his heart had sounded, 

Above all, the Master Chord. 

Once a warrior led his legions 

'Till they conjured in his name; 
'Till each one was willing, eager, 

That his chief should ride to fame 
Over him, as but a unit 

In the broad, triumphal way. 
Leading unto future conquests 

From the victories of today. 
And they cried: "Be thine the glory. 

Though our ranks be thinned and torn. 
Give command, for us the carnage; 

For this purpose were we born," 
And they promised him an empire, 

But the warrior sheathed his sword. 
For, above their shouts had sounded. 
For his ears, the Master Chord. 



AND OTHER POEMS 39 



Jus Singulare 

I cannot be another; this would be 

Stagnation, mental death, more to be feared 

Than sure annihilation, which for want 

Of knowledge of all Nature's teachings, some still say 

Shall come hereafter. Nay, although it please but one. 

One, and one only, of all they who walk 

The earth with reason, I must only be 

Myself alone. All of the glorious deeds 

And noble actions, holy impulses. 

Of great and pure of all the ages past. 

Or freighted present, must be only held 

As finger boards that point, not for the place 

Where I must pitch my tent. I cannot dwell 

With them: nor lead, nor follow, lest I should 

Become but a mere mirror, and not the 

Creative thing that God intended, else 

He had refrained from making separate 

And individual beings, 'round each twain 

Of which, (although twin brethern, born and reared 

In the same home) throwing a separate 

Environment. Nay, if I would have life. 

And add unto myself the potency 

Which makes men strong to endure and abide 

Through two eternities, I cannot be 

Sage, prophet, nor another; I must be 

Myself alone. All of the borrowed things 

Some day, in augmented greatness shall 

Return unto the fount or place from whence 

They came. Things of our own, though they be mean, 

And paltry, yet the same are ours, and ours 

Alone. In all the universe of God 



40 CHILD SLAVES 

Exists no power able to wrest them from 
Our hands; and no strong voice can say; 
"These which thou claimest are another's goods, 
By right of prior ownership." Let me 
Be w^hatsoe'er the powers within me shall 
Decree; be that the far, thin air, or the 
Dark ways of subterranean cavern; the 
Free flight of eagles, or the chained life of 
The clod, but let me be myself alone. 

I cannot be another; I must be 

Myself alone, if I would triumph o'er 

The second death, and all things else that fright 

Small minds and halting reason; which came to 

The earth prenatally deformed. 1 must 

Weave into all the fabric of my soul 

Things which with nmy unaided hands I have 

Planted, nurtured, harvested. In the loom 

The God of Nature gave me, I must place 

The warp of my intentions, and so watch 

The shuttle of my thoughts and deeds, that when 

'Tis finished, though grotesque and crude, or fit 

For angels' courts or princes' feet, no one 

Can say that there exists its like in all 

The realms infinite; the warp and w^oof 

And pattern must be mine — and mine alone. 



What Can I Do? 

What can I do for you, my brother; 

Caught in the eddy of Mammon's power; 
Learning the fairest desires to smother; 

Loosing your child-heart, hour by hour; 
What can I do? 



AND OTHER POEMS 41 

What can I do, O, worker, weary 

Of the ceaseless tramp, in the circUng way. 
To dispel the clouds, low-hung and dreary. 

And help you live like a man today; 
What can I do? 

What can I do; O, you who are treading 
The strange winepress of anothers gain; 

To lessen your fear; your slavish dreading; 
To loose the bands of your numbing pain; 
What can I do? 

What can I do; O, hopeless woman. 

To bring your visions and dreams anew? 

To teach you that they whom you fear are human 
And under the self same law as you; 
What can I do? 

What can I do, O, you w^ho are playing, 
With toys of empire for smiles of kings. 

To teach you that it is a truthful saying 
That all save men are passing things; 
What can I do? 

What can I do; O, blinded nation, 

That struggles a tottering throne to save, 

To teach you there is no rank or station 
In the democracy of the grave; 
What can I do? 

Could I be the bearer of freedom sent thee; 

The freedom which purges all things of dross; 
O, could I but bring you the souls nepenthe 
I would willingly walk the way of the cross! 
What can I do? 



42 CHILD SLAVES 



Affinity 

One day a gifted soul arose 

And he spoke as a seer in stress, 
But the hearers turned to their repose, 

For his words were meaningless; 
But over the emerald sea, away 

From kin and his fatherland. 
They called him great, and good, for they 

His words could understand. 

One day a singer paused and trilled 

A song, and every note 
Was clearer than had ever filled 

The wild-wood songsters throat; 
Some few came from the market place 

And wondered w^hy the song, 
And watched the changes in his face. 

As children view a throng. 

Again one day he sung the song. 
As he thought, to stranger ears; 

But they cried: "Why have you tarried long? 
We have w^aited weary years; 

We have waited long and tiresome days. 
To worship at your shrine, 

To hear you, to our hymn of praise, 
Make answer: 'Brethren, mine." 

One night filled with promethean fire. 

An artist hand aw^oke 
The slumbering soul of a minstrel's lyre. 

With more than a master's stroke; 



AND OTHER POEMS 43 

But the listeners turned, their souls attuned 

To strains in a minor key. 
And the player wandered, for none communed 

With one so strange as he. 

Again, in like similitude, 

He struck the slumbering lyre. 
And into the eyes of the multitude 

There leaped an answering fire; 
His hand sw^ept defter, for he felt 

Each stroke and shade of tone 
Vibrate their heartstrings, and he knelt 

And answered with his own. 



Ashes, Only Ashes 

Ashes, only ashes — 

Once a youth gave ear and credence 
To the voice that calls each name. 

And he took the white-hot pathway 
Leading to the Hall of Fame; 

And he passed within its portals - 
Hand-carved portals, towering high — 

While the rabble gazed and shouted; 
"There's a new star in our sky." 

And w^ithin were thrones and scepters. 
Jeweled stoles and mural crowns; 

Ermine robes and parchment honors; 
Gold insignia; broidered gowns — 

But a sound came; of light footfalls 
Tinkling on a puncheon floor. 

And he knew all these were ashes — 
Ashes only — nothing more. 



CHILD SLAVES 

Ashes, only ashes — 

Once a man from out a casement, 
In a stately marble pile. 

Gazed upon his world and questioned: 
"Is it really worth the while?" 

He had bartered things eternal 
For a mouldering estate; 

As a witless world counts greatness 
He had striven to be great. 

His, the steel sinews of commerce; 
His, a sail on every tide; 

His, a hostelry for servants, 
Where his starved soul could abide — 

But he missed the old-home flowers 
Growing just outside the door, 

And he knew all these were ashes — 
Ashes only — nothing more. 

Ashes, only ashes — 

Once a woman cursed in fourfold, 
Cheek, and lip, and hair, and eye. 

Listened to the supplication: 
"Smile upon us, lest we die." 

And the years brought gold and jewels. 
Place and power and acclaim; 

And the ones who guided nations. 
Stooped to conjure in her name; 

Hers, wide halls and murmuring fountains; 
Tufted floors and gilded stairs; 

Echoing to incessant tramping 
Of the strong men of affairs; 

But she longed for other footfalls 
And the olden love they bore; 

For she knew all these were ashes — 
Ashes only nothing more. 



AND OTHER POEMS 45 



^lack Sheep 



"Black sheep!" yes, so ye name them in your self-com- 

plaisancy; 
Because of some strong impulse, within them, to be free; 
Because they chose the pathway which skirts the brink of 

hell 
Rather than list to tinklings of some sleek leaders bell; 
Incessant, maddening tinklings; than wine fed dreams 

more vain; 
As vacuous as the vaporous clouds which follow after rain. 

"Black sheep!" aye, by what standard, ye kept ones, judge 

ye them? 
Mayhap ye are not worthy to touch their garments hem! 
By what chart of experience do ye say their ways are wild, 
Or teach that stars they follow are baleful, dream be- 
guiled? 
Are there no ways permitted to any, save the ones 
Ye travel? may it not be that some dim stars are suns? 

"Black sheep!" come forth ye censors and stand at my 

right hand 
And answer me: have one of you the power to understand 
Why ye have never wandered from your accidental way? 
Aye, in your frozen spotlessness, declare, why do ye pray; 
"Forgive us our tresspasses?" can it be ye cannot see 
That the turpitude of tresspass is not measured by degree? 

"Black sheep!" mayhap the cloud of wrath ye deem hangs 
o'er their w^ays 

Is but the veil of your own eyes; woven of toneless days. 

Mayhap a shepherd guards their path, one whom ye can- 
not see. 



46 CHILD SLAVES 

Because your eyes are holden by your dogma of degree. 
"What if their bones shall bleach for aye in some ghost 

haunted glen; 
'Tis not that death has called for them, nor how, nor 

where, nor when. 

"Black sheep!" mayhap, but O they know the chasm and 
the pass; 

The canon where the torrent foams; the glaciers dred 
crevasse; 

The wan and ghostlike arms of pine, flung upward to'ard 
the sky; 

The eagle's shadow on the rocks; the gray wolf's hunting 
cry; 

The stone which loosens neath the foot; the treacherous 
tuft of sod; 

The barren crags; the sheer rock walls, the summits near- 
est God! 



Because of Th 



IS 

"O, I love you, love you, love you!" whispered neath the 

palm or pine, 
Brings an argosy of magic, golden sail. 
And sends one into the forest and another to the mine, 
And another cruising down a far sea trail; 
Tis because of this we labor, 'tis because of this we toil; 
Tis because of this the wars of earth have been; 
Tis because of this the ocean's bosom bears a pirates spoil 
And her floors are strewed with whitened bones of men. 



AND OTHER POEMS 47 

"O, I love you, love you, love you!" when the blood is 

young and warm; 
Makes us see an angel face against the pane, 
And v^e kiss a hand toward it, as we w^rap ourselves for 

storm, 
And go down the ways to battle for her gain; 
Tis because of this there's noontide; 'tis because of this 

there's night; 
Tis because of this that brows both slant and tower; 
Tis because of this advancing bugles sound to left and 

right; 
Tis because of this we glory in our power. 

*'0, I love you, love you, love you!" whispered any time, 

or where, 
Haltingly, or with a cadence deep and strong, 
Has the thrill of martial music and the peace of mother's 

prayer. 
And beneath its spell no way of earth is long — 
Tis because of this there's value; 'tis because of this there's 

joy; 

Tis because of this all things of worth have been; 

Tis because of this the graybeard journeys outward, as a 

boy; 
Tis because of this that heaven waits for men. 



At the Bars 

Coming out the w^oodland lot. 

In the aftergloam; 
Sauntering down toward the gate; 

Swallows flying home; 



48 CHILDSLAVES 

Red star just a showing plain — 

Reckon it is Mars — 
Cows are coming to'ards the lane- 

There's Nelly at the bars. 

Lazy hum is in the air; 

Mournful whip-poor-will 
Piping doleful to his mate, 

Just across the hill — 
Cows are turning in the lane; 

Half a dozen stars 
Twinkling out and back again, 

And Nelly at the bars. 

Little fleecy cloud o* dust 

Trailing long behind; 
Raising, like thick gossamers, 

Twisted and entwined — 
Seems like Edens' come again; 

Nothing taints nor mars — 
Cows are coming down the lane 

Just lounging to'ard the bars. 

Just the peace of eventide; 

Just the silvery moon 
Mounting upward silently; 

Just the pigeon's croon — 
Someone flutters like a bird — 

Eyes as bright as stars — 
Nelly whispered just a word — 

Cows are through the bars. 



AND OTHER POEMS 49 



The Burning of the Leaves 

We are drawing, drawing near. 

To the yellow and the sere. 

And the burning of the leaves, 

Autumn leaves; 
And I wonder what you'll bring, 

That you've gathered since the spring. 
To the burning of the leaves. 
Fallen leaves. 

I have brought with me tonight. 

Petals of a lily white. 
To the burning of the leaves. 

Autumn leaves; 
I'm consigning to the fire 

Withered roses of desire, 
At the burning of the leaves, 
Fallen leaves. 

All the promise of the spring. 

All the summer's wondering. 
At the burning of the leaves, 

Autumn leaves; 
Dance beside each ray of light. 
Catch and spin it into night. 
At the burning of the leaves, 
Fallen leaves. 

Will their essence linger near 

And within the coming year. 
Enter into other leaves 
Vernal leaves; 



50 CHILD SLAVES 

Or will hands behind the veil 

Speed an outward laden sail. 
To the burning of the leaves, 
Fallen leaves; 

Though you may not understand 
Why my heart incited hand — 
At the burning of the leaves, 

Yellow leaves: 
Steals to thine and trembles so — 
Clasp it once, then turn and go, 
From the burning of the leaves. 
Fallen leaves. 



Only a Wave of the Hand 

Only a wave of the hand, Marie, 

Only a wave of the hand; 
Then to the trail w^here the way is free. 

And back to the summer land; 
The trail that swings from the hoof swept plain, 

Over the far divide. 
And I wonder if there is a bit of pain 

For me, on the other side. 

Just a wave of the hand, Marie, 

We part as the ships that pass; 
The hand of the lad will remembered be. 

As well as the hand of the lass; 
The rose tipped fingers will come in dreams, 

When the sun is in the sky — 
Only a wave of the hand, it seems, 

Is better than just, "good-by." 



AND OTHER POEMS 51 

Only a wave of the hand, Marie; 

I could hear you call, I ween, 
I know you are near, but 1 cannot see 

For the dull, thick mist between — 
*Tis strange how quick and how black as night. 

From the level lands below, 
The fog drifts in — it was clear and bright 

But a moment or two ago. 

Just a wave of the hand, Marie, 

Just a wave of the hand; 
Then to the trail where the way is free, 

And back to the summer land; 
The trail that swings from the hoof swept plain, 

Over the far divide. 
And I wonder if there is a bit of pain 

For me, on the other side. 



God Thought so Too 

1 saw her at her evening camp 

Calm, patient, and serene; 
Upon her brow was heaven's stamp 

Which marked her as a queen. 
I did not question of her years — 

Years meaningless to me — 
I thought; from all their fears and tears 

She has won victory; 
A wreath unfading she has won; 

There's nothing more to do; 
Save close the book and say; "well done. 

It seems God thought so too, 



52 CHILD SLAVES 

He had fought nobly, from his youth, 
But little wealth had wrung 

From earth and air; save wealth of truth — 
For this he was unsung. 

The fortitude with which he faced 
Life's duties led its curse 

A captive; sealed him as first caste 
Of all the Universe. 

I thought; there's little now remains 
For you to dare or do; 

Save seek the Treasury of your gains- 
It seems God thought so too. 

I knew him when our lives were young 
And every prospect fair; 

Unmarred by envy's scorpion tongue; 
When each of us was heir 

Unto all covenants, sealed w^ith hope. 
Which to'ard the heavens incline — 

A prince he walked where others grope 
Prince of the seldom line! 

When Perfidy, from out the sheath 
Of secrecy, withdrew 

Her sword, I thought; how sweet is death- 
It seems God thought so too. 



Mayhap * 

Mayhap my friend was weary 
And did not struggle sore; 

Mayhap some spring song sounding, 
From some celestial shore. 



AND OTHER POEMS 53 

Lured him from tinsel spangles; 

From candle, book, and bell; 
From echoes and from shadows. 

With substance real to dwell. 

Mayhap his soul was forward 

And blossomed ere the noon 
And who shall say the reaper 

Came heedless, or too soon? 
Who shall affirm that profit 

Is with the bended grain. 
Which sickleless grows golden 

And sapless? Is this gain? 

Mayhap beyond his sunset. 

He saw a glorious dawn; 
And feeling strong to meet it, 

He hurried, gladly, on. 
Mayhap the droop of pinion 

Greeting our shortened sight. 
Was but prelude to power. 

For higher, grander flight. 

Mayhap my friend was weary 

Of cares, and fears, and tears. 
And yearned, with ceaseless longing. 

To touch the peaceful years; 
And having seen their dawning 

Flush golden in his sky. 
Sped on toward their portals; 

As homing pigeons fly. 



* Upon receiving news of the death of my poet friend, Roy 
Farrell Greene. God rest his soul. 



54 CHILD SLAVES 



The Scattered Nation 

O, my people, scattered nation; 

Sojourners in every clime; 
Though your harps hang on the willows, 

God is with you all the time. 

You have drank earth's bitter w^aters, 

Felt adversity's chill blast. 
But for all your sons and daughters 

There remaineth rest at last. 

You have strengthened every nation. 
And your blood has been a sign. 

When 'twas poured as a libation, 
Of that nation's sure decline. 

Cursed have been they who cursed you; 

Blessed have been they ■wh.o blest. 
And rewarded they w^ho nursed you, 

With the jew^el of God's rest. 

Mighty men from out thy fountain 
Have their inspiration draw^n. 

And the Stone hewn from thy mountain 
Keys the archway of God's dawn. 

Despite Envy's degradations. 

From thy loins have sprung kings; 

Rulers of strange tongues and nations. 
Sovereigns of Eternal things. 

O, my people, scattered nation; 

Sojourners in every clime; 
God will bring your restoration 

In his own good day and time. 



AND OTHER POEMS 55 



Christ on the Frontier 

[After a long and threatning controversy as to their boundary lines, 
Chile and Argentina have come to an agreement. Their new frontier 
is well guarded. They have erected on it not a cordon of fortresses 
but a single statue of Christ. — Letter to Atlanta (Ga.) News ] 

When the Teuton, Slav and Saxon, in their all absorbing 

quest. 
Take the slope toward the sunset where, perforce, each 

race must rest, 
And the God of Justice leaves them, more in anger than 

in ruth. 
Then the execrated Latin will renew his vanished youth; 
Even now his bow of promise dimly spans the coming 

years. 
With the Christ of ancient story standing guard on his 

frontiers. 

As the Roman towered above the degradation of the north. 
So his children bide in darkness, while a giant sallys forth, 
Clad in all Rome's ancient glory, fierce, impatient of res- 
traint, 
Mixing with his strong new wine the toxic hemlock of at- 
taint; 
And the pendulum of time that swung them far in dark- 
ened years. 
Stops, and starts again to power, with the Christ on their 
frontiers. 

Behind each eternal precept there is an eternal life. 

And a truth, which makes for greatness, is as jealous as a 

wife; 
This is learned not, save in silence, introspective, and away 



56 CHILDSLAVES 

From all artificial standards, where the chastened soul may 

play 
On untrammelled harp a strain, of which the weary sentry 

hears, 
At low twelve, a faint dream echo, sounding down his 

King's frontiers. 

So in silence they have learned it; between plains of 
Argentine 

And the rugged lands of Chile, stands the Christ of Pales- 
tine; 

The hoarse gutteral of the pine is drowned by whisperings 
of the palm, 

And no fierce, defiant bugle breaks upon the morning calm. 

As an earnest of the widow's sighs and of the orphan's 
tears 

That must follow, as a Price, when arms establishes fron- 
tiers. 

We, the Bible reading nations, wrho with zeal, and might 

and main. 
Have strange peoples proselyted — w^hen we found it to 

our gain; 
We, who send afar our substance, for the glory of the 

Lord 
Who, beside the brook of Cedron, gave command: "Put 

up thy sword," 
We, the self appointed fountains of all hypocritic tears. 
Who w^ith Christ extend our commerce and with Meixims 

our frontiers — 

We, of whom weak tribes have learned — and learned it to 

their lasting hurt 
That their lands and not their souls were what we labored to 

convertl 



AND OTHER POEMS 57 

Learned that our interpetation of the Sermon on the 
Mount 

Was a prelude to our bugles — that our Bible did not count 

Any more than their appeals, their protestations or their 
tears, 

When we once set out determined on extending our fron- 
tiers— 

We will learn — there's no avoidance — that the law of rec- 
ompense, 

Which rules over righteous action, governs also false pre- 
tense; 

Learn the bar of last resort is not the blood drunk court of 
kings; 

That the great law of Remission deals not with material 
things; 

Learn that power which is abiding, which shall widen 
through the years, 

Comes not with the clash of armies, but with Christ on the 
frontiers. 

Here's to you, O New World Latins, firey children of old 

Spain, 
Yet unused to measuring Justice by the shortened yard of 

gain. 
You have caught the early reverence we have lost and to 

our face 
Shamed us in our pirate greed and in our tawdry pride of 

race; 
You've remembered in your penance, in your bitterness 

and tears. 
That a power above the Maxim finally fixes all frontiers. 



58 CHILDSLAVES 



Counting Out 

Sat a child, with wondering eyes, 
Half remembering Paradise; 
Answering back the wren and thrush 
Piping to her through the hush 
Of the morning; counting slow, 
In a measured tone and low: 
"Intra, mintra, curley corn; 
Apple seed and apple thorn," 

Sat a maiden in w^hose breast 

Was awakening an unrest 

Which, until her soul were free, 

Would remain a mystery; 

Singing idly o'er and o'er — 

Why she knew not, nor wherefore — 

"Intra, mintra, curley corn, 

Apple seed and apple thorn. 

Wire, briar. Umber lock, 

Three geese in a flock, — " 

Little joys and little sorrows; 
Little errors; little truth; 
Spirit kin to summer starlight. 
Aye, a glorious thing is youth. 

Sat a wife alone, the past 
Rose before her and w^as cast 
On her screen of memory; 
What in virgin musings she 
Fully purposed should occur. 
Strangely had eluded her. 



AND OTHER POEMS 59 

"Intra, mintra, curley corn, 

Apple seed and apple thorn. 

Wire, briar, limber lock, 

Three geese in a flock; 

One flevsr east and one flew west 

And one flew o'er the cuckoo's nest." 

Sat a mother at her work. 
Where the quarter shadows lurk, 
Weaving on life's mystic loom 
Fabrics that with light and gloom 
Interspersed are— warp and w^oof 
Of conjecture and of proof; 
"Intra, mintra, curley corn, 
Apple seed and apple thorn. 
Wire, briar, limber lock. 
Three geese in a flock, 
One flew east and one flew west 
And one flew o'er the cuckoo's nest. 
One Two — —Three " 

Greater joys and greater sorrows; 
Thus it is and thus will be; 
Somewhere we w^ill know^ the reason. 
Glorious is maturity. 

Childless now^, with w^eary eyes. 
Catching gleams of Paradise, 
Seeing things the aged see 
Just this side Eternity; 
Child and maiden, mother, wife, 
Counting out degrees of life: 
"Intra, mintra, curley corn, 
Apple seed and apple thorn, 
Wire, briar, limber lock, 



60 CHILDSLAVES 

Three geese in a flock; 
One flew east and one flew west 
And one flew o'er the cuckoo's nest. 
One Two Three Out!" 

Clearer sight and understanding 

Cometh with the years increase; 

"One — Two — Three — and Out — " beyond this 

Lies the realm of rest and peace. 



Hear, O, Israeli 

Hear, O, Israel, the chosen! 

Ye who hold the shibboleth! 
Part the things of Cain's succession 

From the heritage of Seth. 
Hear, my people! hear, my brethren! 

Listen to me as I speak; 
Shun the gods of mart and Mammon; 

After these the gentiles seek. 

Yours, the flowers, widely scattered; 

Theirs, the wreath of beaten gold; 
Yours, the things, reborn at springtime; 

Theirs, all that which waxeth old; 
All the things which anchor earthward; 

All the passing things, and weak; 
Are not yours by God's intendment; 

After these the gentiles seek. 

Yours, the sunrise, framed in vastness; 

Theirs, the canvas, bordered round 
With the yellow pride of grovelers, 

Filched, with anguish, from the ground. 



AND OTHER POEMS 61 

Theirs, the broad highway of shoutings; 

Yours, the still path of the meek; 
Strive not for the things which echo; 

After these the gentiles seek. 

Yours, the commonwealth of brethren; 

Theirs, the bent, suppliant knee; 
Yours, the worship of the Father; 

Theirs, of station and degree. 
Yours is not the hand of pow^er. 

Wherewith you may vengeance wreak; 
Yours is not the spoils of conflict; 

After these the gentiles seek. 

Hear, O, Israel, the chosen; 

Ye who hold the shibboleth; 
Part the things of Cain's succession 

From the heritage of Seth. 
Hear, my people! hear, my brethren! 

Listen to me as I speak; 
Shun the gods of mart and Mammon; 

After these the gentiles seek. 



No jippeal 



Men builded a city, rich and grand, 

Far back in the morning years, 

Aud the king they chose, with an iron hand, 

Flung far their strong frontiers; 

The trumpet's blare and the cymbal's ring 

Drew from fair lands and far. 

Strong men, who stood before the king 

With swords and shields of war. 



62 CHILD SLAVES 

But the bat drove music from their halls, 

And the jackal made his lair 

In their streets, and slunk by the throne room walls 

And sniffed at the great king's chair; 

For the things which make for righteousness 

Unlearned w^ere, or forgot, 

And there came in their hour of forgetfulness, 

A voice which men answer not. 

Again on the shores of a summer sea 

Men halted and tarried long 

And raised a city which long shall be 

The theme of tale and song. 

The learned of earth, as thitherward 

They journeyed, cried: "We go 

Where the pen outranks the warriors sword 

And the chisel the archer's bow. 

They builded, of thought, an empire w^ide, 

And butteressed it strong v/ith dreams; 

And they named their gods of the mountainside, 

Of the forest, sea and streams; 

But the kingdom crumbled and rose the wail; 

"Thou fair, why did you die?" 

And none replied — hid was the trail. 

Where the unknown God passed by. 

AH down the long, meandering way, 

From the plains of Hindustan 

To where the rear guard rests today, 

Are the crumbling works of man; 

Standing, like sentries marmoreal. 

Marking each onward march. 

On the long trail from stone to steel. 

From lintel unto arch. 



AND OTHER POEMS 63 

In fallen pillar, ruined place, 

I wonder will he read 

The story of his stiff necked race, 

And reading, will he heed? 

Will crumbling column, rising grim. 

Against an eastern sky. 

Be mute memorials to him. 

Of the time his God passed by. 



Have I ^een So Long Time With You ? 

Have I been so long time with you and yet thou hast not 
known 
It was I who walked the highway by your side? 
Have you failed to catch my anguish in the widow's 
stifled moan; 
Or to see me in the brother you denied? 

Have you failed to see my advent, in a thousand Bethle- 
hems. 
In the mother's gaze of rapture— in the cry 
Of a soul to whom the earth, w^ith all its crowns and 
diadems, 
Was far stranger than the stars that dot the sky? 

Have the Jordan's waters w^aited while you sought a 
crumbling crown? 
Do you view the sacred river from afar? 
Have you failed to see the w^hite dove in the souls which 
flutter down 
From the heights to dark sloughs where your breth- 
ren are? 



64 CHILD SLAVES 

Have you blindly groped in darkness, after life and after 
me? 
Have you missed the gold and garnered only dross? 
Have you failed to feel my presence in your ow^n Geth- 
semane, 
Or to see me in your fellow on his cross? 

Have you failed to see me walking, in the sunshine, in 
the storm — 
Read my word among the flowers — on the hills? 
I have whispered to you often when the summer winds 
rush warm 
And my voice is in the blast that numbs and chills. 

Have you failed to see me standing in a thousand Judg- 
ment halls, 
While a thousand Pilates weaver at the cry 
Of the rabble, pressing round them, while upon their 
ears there falls 
The brain darkened shout: "Deliver!" "Crucify!" 

Have you failed to see the nail prints, in the hands and in 
the feet. 
Of the one who walked the highw^ay by your side? 
If you have your knowledge of me is not, cannot be, com- 
plete. 
And your soul is small and easy satisfied. 

Have 1 been so long time with you and yet thou hast not 
known 
That you served me when you served the least of these 
My brethren, who are with you, and are brethren of your 
own. 
More than when you agonized on bended knees! 



AND OTHER POEMS 65 



Vd Like to Be a Boy Again 

I'd like to be a boy again, with nothing else to do 

But chunk the holes in the rail fence— the holes the pigs 

crawled through; 
When I could watch the apple blooms, that sister said was 

sweet. 
An' tell her they'd look better when they's big enough to 

eat. 
When 1 could look upon the world complaisant as a clam; 
When Dad did all the worrying, assisted some by Mam; 
When, barefoot, 1 could feel jes Uke I didn't weigh an 

ounce. 
When I could jes sail down the road an' hit the grit an' 

bounce. 

I'd like to hunt and find the cows and drive 'em to the 

bars 
An' set close to them an' pretend Uke I was countin stars; 
Then jab Boss with a stick an' see her scatter Mary Ann 
An' milk around the lot, an' hear Bill Jones, the hired man. 
Say: "What's a-aihn' ye, ye fool? So, Sookey! Gosh! 

Dod Rot!" 
When Boss would make a wild sashay and carom off of 

Spot; 
Then, barefoot, I would feel jes Uke I didn't weigh an 

ounce. 
An' jes go saiUn' out of there— jes hit the grit an' bounce. 

I'd like to kick the dew off of the pursley by the barn, 
An get the cow-itch in my toes an' tie 'em up with yarn; 
I'd Uke to hunt up bumblebees, an' start a scrumptious 
fight, 



66 CHILD SLAVES 

An hear Mam say, when I got home: "You shorely are a 

fright;" 
An* have her tell Dad what I'd done, an' see him stand 

an' glower, 
Then take me to the wood-shed for a strenuous half-hour, 
An' then I'd sorter feel jes like 1 didn't weigh an ounce, 
I'd jes jump up and down an' howl — jes hit the floor an' 

bounce. 

I'd like to learn my sister's lamb the ways of older sheep. 
An' watch him lift her feller, an' hear Sis storm an' weep; 
An' have her tell me I'd humil-i-a-ted her an' spoiled her 

pet. 
An' hear my Gran'ma say: "That boy will reach the 

gallus yet." 
It's worth something to be a boy an' have a fine-toothed 

comb 
Used on you every night as soon as yon from school got 

home; 
Then shuck your shoes an' feel jes like you didn't weigh 

an ounce, 
An* jes go sailin' down the road — jes hit the grit an' bounce. 

I'd like to grab the handle of Mam's old pop-gun churn, 
An' play with it from daylight till Dad called me to turn 
The grindstone, while he bore on hard, to grind the mower 

knives; 
B'jinks, the boy division is the best part of our lives. 
Oh, I'd hke to be a boy again, an' back to the old 

place. 
Where 1 could manicure ten cows and then go out and 

chase 
A plow that weighed a hundred tons, and then some, if 

an ounce — 
A plow that hunted stones and roots tg get a chance to 

bounce. 



AND OTHER POEMS 67 



A Hobo's Reverie • 

This is a book; it contains no name 

Save the one in print. From off the train 

Some fellow threw it. I suppose he thought 

That he was doing the thing he ought. 

Perhaps he saw and pitied me — 

The poor, bound soul, to pity the free! 

Perhaps he owns broad acres, fair 

And fertile; but if so gaunt care 

Is part of his holdings — as for me 

The world is wide and my soul is free! 

He has deeper learning, no doubt, than I, 

But, mayhap, he gleaned it at cost or eye; 

If so he could not trade with me 

His all for the eye with which I see! 

This is a book; well, I will see 

What sort of a messags it brings to me — 

Uh, huh; the first page that 1 scan 

Says: "Origin and End of Man." 

What's either to him, or me, I say. 

When neither of us own today; 

Nor the present hour, nor the coming breath? 

Not knowing Life, he inquires of Death! 

I suppose that this is a part of the lore 

That the poor slave traded his eyesight for! 

If so it be, then the fact remains; 

That I, not he, am the one with gains. 

This is a book; in the world of dross, 
Where so much depends on a copper's toss, 
Tis, doubtless, accepted philosophy 



68 CHILD SLAVES 

But there's more real truth in that ancient tree 
And that saphng there, and the grass and vine, 
And I count all these as books of mine, 
I shouldn't wonder if scores of men 
Were sick of soul in the toiler's den — 
For den it is and their sole reward 
For toiling there is — clothes and board! 
I live, though my garments let in the air 
And are only memories of what clothes were. 

This is a book; well, 1 suppose, 

That he and his world pity all hobos 

In winter they're safe from the storm's rude shock; 

Our haven is oft but a sheltering rock; 

But we would not trade our scanty fare 

And the wild, free life, for theirs and their care. 

They have their music, dear bought and grand; 

But we have the birds and the voice of the land — 

The voice of the land, which they cannot hear. 

Because they have dulled their inner ear 

They need not pity us, nor curse. 

For ours is the wealth of the universe. 

This is a book; tonight when 1 build 

My fire and my coffee can is filled 

And set on the glowing coals to boil, 

As a sacrifice to bootless toil, 

I will offer this volume to the flame — 

This thing with the round, full, sounding name — 

Lest I should read and become a slave 

And trembhngly go to the chattel's grave; 

Like the slaves who, to things they think they own, 

Have right of possession — and that alone: 

A right which another more strong than they 

May come tomorrow and take away. 



AND OTHER POEMS 69 



He Would Smoke 

He strove to help his fellows and he sacrificed, 'tis said; 
He never kept his boquets till the friend he loved was 

dead; 
He loved the little children and the aged and infirm 
And did not think that all mankind were brethren to the 

worm; 
He w^as honest in his dealings — he w^as honest w^hen he 

spoke; 
But the Devil surely had him, for — the reproabate would 

smoke. 

He discharged every duty, as God gave him to see 
Each duty, and he ever prayed that all men might be free; 
He loved his brethren dearly he had charity for all; 
Was ever ready to help up the w^avering ones who fall; 
He bore life's burdens smilingly, with heart as strong as 

oak; 
But the Devil surely had him, for O, horrors, he would 

smoke! 

His purse flew open when the cry of misery was heard; 
He gave his substance freely, for he understood God's 

word. 
The storm was never fierce enough, nor dark enough the 

night 
To heep him from a friend in need, or one on whom the 

blight 
Of circumstance had fallen, or who felt the numbing 

stroke 
Of disaster, self-invited — but, the castaway would smoke! 



70 CHILDSLAVES 

What mattered if he struggled to be gentle with all men? 
What mattered if he, like the Jew, kept the commandments 

ten; 
With the eleventh added? What mattered it if he 
Strove to possess the spirit of the man of Galilee? 
What mattered if at human woe his great heart all but 

broke? 
Was he not a child of Satan? Certainly — for he would 

smokel 



The Optomist and the Liar 

O, one was the Gleesome Optomist, and one was the 

Cheerful Liar 
And the twain of them met one winter night by the side 

of a roaring fire; 
"It warms my heart," said the Optomist, "to meet you here 

tonight; 
For this jolly old world that carrys us all is certainly 

wagging right. 
There isn't a thing that any one needs but what they can 

surely get." 
And the Liar hung his hat on a peg and turned and said: 

"You bet!" 

"It never rains too much 1 trow and 'tis never dry too 
long; 

There are no thorns with the roses now and life is a bliss- 
ful song; 

All women are chaste; all men are true, and friends; as 
the flowers in May; 



AND OTHER POEMS 71 

In fact, the children ot Adam walk and act the way they 

pray; 
Is this not true, my cheerful friend? Come now, your 

thoughts confess." 
And the Liar smiled a sickly smile and haltingly said: 

"Well, yes." 

At this the crane in the chimney clanged and the Devil 

came down the flue 
And roared as he struck the hot brick hearth and stood 

before the two. 
He glowered upon the Cheerful Liar and said: "My son, 

alasl 
I love you well, as a father should — but, hence! you are 

out of your class!" 
And the Optomist said: "You can't beat this fire in the 

place from whence you roam," 
And the Devil said: "What do you think of that? By hen, 

I'm going home." 



^he G^psy Call 

My soul goes out and travels far 

Beyond the clustered stars; 
And answ^ering to its Avatar, 

My life beats gainst its bars. 

The gypsy call that comes adown 
The sunset's shortning beam. 

Finds answer; and I hate the town 
And love the w^ays of dream. 

My eyes turn from the crumbling chart. 
Which marks where wisdom lies; 



72 CHILD SLAVES 

To greet her living counterpart. 
Traced on the midnight skies. 

From mummied learning; bootless strife; 

I gladly turn today; 
For symbols of the deeper life, 

Hung in the milky way. 

The bauble groundlings cavil o'er 
Comes with the evening damp. 

And all the unrest of the poor 
Is in the w^inter camp. 

My hope is forest, fen and sod; 

My fear the storm and flood; 
A revelation from my God 

Is in the bursting bud. 

My music is the w^ild birds trill; 

The beat of wing on air; 
The chipmunk's chirrup, from the hill; 

The voices everywhere. 

My prayers are: "form me! make me free! 

Give me to understand!" 
And lo, the answer to the three 

Is in my brain and hand! 



Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep 

I've tasted of the wine of life. 

For which men struggle so; 
Some of the fierce joy, born of strife. 

It has been mine to know: 



AND OTHER POEMS 73 

But, O, I'd trade all and be glad 

For just one little hour 
Within the home that once I had 

When life was in its flower. 
I'm weary of the mills I tread; 

I want to stop and play; 
I want to see my trundle bed; 
I want to kneel and pray: 

"Now 1 lay me down to sleep; 
Pray the Lord my soul to keep; 
Should 1 die before I wake. 
Pray the Lord my soul to take." 

Today the rabble shouts for me. 

Tomorrow there may come 
Another in new livery 

And they'll be strangely dumb. 
Then I shall know the bitterness 

Of one who yields a throne 
Unto another, through some stress 

Of fortune, not his own. 
I'm tired of fatlings, custom fed; 

I'm tired of garish day; 
I want to see my trundle bed; 
I want to kneel and pray: 

"Now I lay me dow^n to sleep; 
Pray the Lord my soul to keep; 
Should I die before I wake, 
Pray the Lord my soul to take." 

I want to hear the sleepy dove 

Croon; just beneath the eaves; 
And shudder at the rustUng of 

The aspen's restless leaves. 
I want to see the full moon swing 



74 CHILD SLAVES 

Through a pale, sapphire sky; 
I want to hear my mother sing 

An evening lullaby. 
They cannot tell me she is dead; 

She's just been long away — 
I want to see my trundle bed, 
I want to kneel and pray: 

"Now^ I lay me down to sleep; 
Pray the Lord my soul to keep. 
Should I die before I wake. 
Pray the Lord my soul to take.' 



// Is T^assing 

It is passing with the sunsets; 

Passing, passing with the years; 
Passing with the faded remnant 

Of a hundred wild frontiers; 
Passing w^ith its wondrous story 

All unwritten, half untold; 
For its dreams of men and empire 

Being into Egypt sold. 

Outlaw^ed, banished from its kingdom. 

By the edict of mischance; 
Going out, like campfire gleamings 

Flow toward where shadows dance. 
Passing with the ones who made it 

Badge of honor, sign of man; 
rhey who held by heart's tradition 

To the open dealing clan. 



AND OTHER POEMS 75 

It is passing with the round-up — 

Beat of hoof and clash of horn. 
In the storm, and in the darkness. 

When contempt of death was born. 
Passing with the prairie anthem: 

With the whisper of the land 
To God's silent, unscarred heaven; 

To the stars that understand. 

It is passing, swiftly passing, 

Down the shifting ways of change; 
Passing with the broader order. 

Passing with the wider range. 
Passing on toward the shadows. 

With its losings and its gains; 
Passing with its tale unwritten — 

The white "Stetson" of the Plains, 



Supplicaiion 

Great God! We are so ignorant; 

Our knowledge is so poor; 
We cling unto the Cave-Man's cage; 
We shun the open door 
Through which we might emerge to walk broad ways all 

hedged with flowers 
And reach the heights where we could say: "The Universe 
is ours!" 
Yet Heedless of our poverty 

And reckless of our shame. 
We scorn the unbound and the free 
And blindly follow name. 



76 CHILD S^LAVES 

Pause Thou! our minds are clouded so, 

By long forgotten years, 
That we are like the timid soul 
Possessed of female fears; 
And when we should stand in the sun, or man the 

battlements. 
We seek the subterranean ways, or skulk within our tents, 
And w^ith our useless gold w^e gild 
The swart, — grain-furrow^ed face; 
And call it ''progress" when we build 
A larger market place. 

Have pity Father! we are weak; 

Our hard-yoked necks are sore; 
We bear the burden of each one 

We lived and thought before; 
And wheresoever he was crude; in that in which he failed, 
Or stumbled, it is unto us, in cumbered fee, entailed, 
Then judge us only by intent 

And w^here our sin w^e blend 
With righteousness, which Thou hast lent. 

Look Thou unto the end! 



^all on the Vacant Lot 

There's crow tracks gathering 'round my eyes and silver 

in my hair; 
I do not need a lexicon to know what's meant by care; 
Sometimes w^hen a hot day has brought an added dash of 

gall 
I w^onder if the game is w^orth the candle, after all; 
But when I'm home of evenings and the world is half forgot 



AND OTHER POEMS 77 

And the boys are playing town ball, down upon the vacant 

lot. 
I loose my grip on things mature and dream I am a boy 
And I know the gray worlds treasury still holds the same 

old joy — 
The weight of years lifts and moves on whene'er I hear 

them shout: 
"Aw, Skinny, give the willow up! You great, big slob, 

you're out!" 

The brooks do not appear as wide as once they seemed 

to be. 
Nor murmur half so sweetly on their journey to the sea, 
I miss the chipmunk's chirrup from the old log on the hill, 
I've lost the lark and oriole; I've found the whip-poor-will; 
I cannot see the colors in the sunset and the dawn 
That once I used to see there and I wonder where they've 

gone; 
I know my hearing has been dulled by life's commercial din 
And my eyes; they have been blinded by the books I've 

burrow^ed in — 
Know it? Of course 1 know it, when a boyish voice rings 

clear: 
"Hey! Mugsy! Hey, you duffer! Aw, wake up an' put 

'er here!" 

A panorama of the days which cannot be forgot. 

Comes, like rare gleams from Paradise, across that vacant 

lot. 
And O, 'tis worth the price it costs, e'en though it break a 

chain 
Of thought, which were it left to form, would split the 

world in twain. 
And thongh I loose what paltry wealth it may be mine to 

claim, 



78 CHILD SLAVES 

Although my death may find the world in ignorance of my 

name, 
I will account it fortune, fame, and everlasting joy, 
If I retain a remnant of the free heart of a boy — 
If I can feel the willow bend, when the last ball shall come 
Across the plate, and hear a cry: "Nobody there! Come 

Homel" 



Heart Songs 



Heart songs; although a peasants lay. 

Compel the souls of kings. 
And speed the gray earth on its w^ay 

Toward eternal things. 

Heart songs; aye, heart songs will remain 

Handmaidens of the soul 
When all else tangible entrain 

With heaven's closing scroll. 

Heart songs; although -we mock the air 
And flount the halting rhyme; 

Yet God is with them everywhere — 
Behind them all the time. 

Heart songs; O sing them, son of mine. 

While youth is in the veins; 
Before the red leaf decks the vine: 

Before the autumn rains. 

Songs sweeter than all flowers that blow 
Heart songs, not songs of brow — 

I could have sung them long ago; 
I cannot sing them now. 



AND OTHER POEMS 79 

Heart songs — yet like a rain fed stream 

They riot in my breast; 
But voice is down the ways of dream; 

Ways centering in the west. 

When I am through with bloom and blight 

And with the toys of men 
And bathed in some celestial light, 

I know I'll sing them then. 



%!)isitation 

I am come from the tents of the languorous breeze, 

To a camp far in from shore; 
From a star marked course, through trackless seas, 

To the path to the threshing floor. 

From the tawny tribes where the day awakes; 

Where they curse the traders sail; 
From the swish of the sea against the strakes, 

To the swirl of the landsman's flail. 

From the speech of the shrouds, in the morning gray. 

To the witless call of the cock; 
From the poppy isles, perfumed alway. 

To the reek of the merchant dock. 

I am come from the shoals of shifting sand; 

From the mist of the fisher's bank; 
To the foul fog anchored against the land; 

The fog of caste and rank! 

From the strong ropes clutched in the mast-head block. 

Clewed fast, or running free; 
To a sapless vine, of ancient stock, 

Hung loose on a leafless tree. 



80 CHILD SLAVES 

I am come from a waste where green meets blue 

And dreams travail in birth; 
From a thousand coral islands to 

The heart of an isle of earth. 



Castles in Spain 

You may scoff at the dream, as the sordid scoff, 

The sordid w^ho worship gain, 
But behind all things are the forms far off 

That people the Castles in Spain. 

There be those who cling, face down, to the earth 

And never know the pain, 
Of they who bring into glorious birth 

The forms in the Castles in Spain. 

When the passing earth has claimed its due; 

You will find that none remain 
As retainers, save those sent by you, 

To the misty Castles in Spain. 

There are tainted things on the old world's breast. 

But there be never a stain 
On the wealth that lies in the treasure chest 

Of the dream builded Castles in Spain. 

O, brother of mine! 1 tell you this; 

That the world is led by brain. 
And ruled, in the last analysis, 

By the forms in the Castles in Spain. 

No matter who may be kings today; 

Their's is but a limited reign; 
The Princes -who hold an eternal sway 

Are in the dream Castles in Spain. 



AND OTHER POEMS 81 



Revised Version 

One day when Fathuh Adam 

Wuh cuttin de sweet dock 
Outen de clober medder 

Ole Satan tooked er walk 
Up to the Eden gahdun, 

An he say: "Well, I b'leeve 
I'll santer in dis mo'nin 

An call on Missus Eve." 

Den Satan fix he coUuh 

An pat he white cravat 
An take he red bandanner 

An smoof he tall silk hat 
An den he put he hat on 

De back part ob he haid 
An say: "I shorely reckons 

I'll kill dat ooman daid!" 

Den Satan take some mint out 

An chew, an den he spy 
Mis' Eve on de veranduh 

An he sorter shet he eye 
An walk right peart up to huh 

An interjuce hisseff, 
An Eve jess stan a-starin, 

An sorter catch her breff. 

Den Satan bow he fines' 

An say: "How is youh chile; 

Is youh mammy home dis mo'nin?" 
An Missus Eve she smile 



82 CHILD SLAVES 

An say: "O, Mistuh Satan, 
You's flatterin me I feah; 

But ain' it er nice mo'nin; 
Step in an take er cheer." 

Den Satan dus' he shoes off 

An step inside de do'h 
An say: "Youh place am lubly 

I orter called befo'h." 
Den Eve bring some refreshmen's 

An Satan praise huh pie 
An Missus Eve ac' proudlike 

An Satan wink he sye. 

Den Satan say: "Dem apples 

I sees dow^n by de gate 
Am mighty likely pippins, 

But I reckons dey am late. 
I bets dat wif dem apples 

Youh sure could mak some pies 
Dat wrould temp' er shinin angel 

To run away frum Paradise!" 

Den Eve say: "Well, 1 flatters 

Mysef Ise er good cook; 
An I didn' learn it neider 

Frum no mammy ner no book. 
But den my ole man, Adam, 

He been a-tellin me 
Dat in de lease de lan'lord 

Hab done resarve dat tree." 

Den Satan say: "Deah lady, 
Ise er lawyer an de Cote 

Jess renduhed er decision 
On er promissory note, 



AND OTHER POEMS 83 

An it hoi's, by way er dictum, 

Dat sich clauses in er lease 
Am void, an in violation 

Ob de State's powuh ob police." 

"Derefoah I can suah inform youh 

Dat youh am intirely free, 
To go out an pick dem apples 

Offen dat ole pippin tree. 
An suahly, gentle lady, 

Ef I could cook like youh 
I'd make some pies out ob em; 

Dats zackly whut I'd do." 

Den Satan draw he gloves on 

An take he hat an cane 
An say: "Mis' Eve I shorely 

Likes the way youh entertain; 
An I thanks youh mighty kindly 

Foah er pleasant aftuhnoon." 
Den he santer down de garhdun 

Er whistlin ob er chune. 

Den Eve she take huh dishpan 

An go an climb dat tree 
An fill dat pan wif apples 

As fine as fine could be; 
An take dem to de kitchen 

An set dem on er shef. 
An when Adam comed to suppuh 

She tell him: "Hep youhseff." 

An Adam — well, he ate some, 

An den er angel came 
A-walkin in de garhden 

An callin' Adam's name; 



84 CHILDSLAVES 

An Adam skeered to ansuh 
Jess den, but by-um-by 

He did — an Ise proud ob him, 
Foah Adam didn' lie. 



Daddy's Pilot 

Ise been musin', ob my chil'ens; how dey's lef me one by 

one; 
To mak' home nes's foah dey own sefs; heah a daughter; 

dah a son; 
How de pirate yeahs hab stole dem, as dey by mah doah- 

way crep*, 
Twell de liT angel daughter am de only one Ise kep'. 
I min' how I faulted Mastuh when de Shadder Vale she 

cross; 
But de ones I tho't Ise keepin' am de only ones I los'. 

She come to us in de spring time when de roses wah in 

bloom 
An de air full ob bird music an* jes loaded wif perfume; 
Was'n a mite like de odders; did'n' fuss ner did'n' cry; 
Why, jes lots ob times Ise ketched huh standin' smilin' at 

de sky; 
An* I could*n unduhstan* huh from de minute dat she come, 
Foah she seemed jes like some angel dat had wanduhed 

way from home. 

She would listen to de birdies an den come to me an say; 
"Daddy, deah, dey's talkin to me in dey funny kin* ob 

way." 
Den she'd lissen to de crickets an den tell me what dey 

said. 
An I'd tell huh she had crinkles in huh HI* kinky haid; 



AND OTHER P;OEMS 85 

An she'd laugh and say: "O, daddy, doan go makin* fun ob 

me; 
Foah I knows whut dey's a-sayin; it's as plain as plain can 

be." 
But de blessed, gentle Mastuh ob de gahdun ober dere, 
Wanted huh, an' so he took her, foah to mak his gahdun 

fair; 
An mah heart growed hard an' stony at His heaviness ob 

han' 
An I stumbled in mah duty, foah I couldn' understan'; 
An I got to doubtin heabin, an' de earrf, bofe sides de 

Cross, 
Twell she come an whispuh: "Daddy, I ain gwine away, nor 

los." 
Since den often in de ebenin' she come trippin down de 

gloam 
An whispuh to me: "Daddy, Ise a-pilotin' youh home." 
An* often in de mo'nin* she come glidin froo de mist 
An' mah heart git strong an' powuhful as mah withur'd 

cheek am kissed — 
De whole big worl' kaint tell me dat she sleepin' in huh 

grave; 
Kaint I see huh? Doan 1 heah huh whisperin; "Daddy, 

deah, be brave?" 

An so I ain' a-pinin' nor a-honin' any moah 

Foah I know she growin' lubly on dat bright, sunshiny 

sho'; 
An' I would'n' mah huh pleasuh by er gittin glum an sad, 
Foah she come to he'p huh daddy, when he need huh 

mighty bad; 
An' she hf me neaher heabin ebery single time she come; 
Wif huh whisperin' to me: "Daddy, Ise a-pilotin' youh 

home." 



86 CHILDSLAVES 



Jess Jl-Honin Aftuh Youh 

Ise setin* heah, dress'd in mah bes', 

An de long week's wruk am thro*; 
Ise restin', lak I used to res', 

An, mah honey, Ise a-honin' aftuh youh. 

De ban' am playin' in de park, 

Jess lak it used to do; 
De stars come a-twinklin' thro' de dark. 

An Ise jess a-honin' aftuh youh. 

Dat Cleopatria — Ann — Marie 

An dat sassy Nanny Loo; 
Been makin' deir sheep's eyes at me; 

But I done kep a-honin' aftuh youh. 

I walked to church de odder night — 

Walked right between dem two; 
It wah dark an I had to hoi' dem tight. 

But I done kep a-honin' aftuh youh. 

I wah up putty late wif widder Smif 

She got tellin' whut she do 
If er comet hit dis earf ker-biff, 

But I jess kep' a-honin' aftuh youh. 

When I lef de Pahson's t'odder night, 

I kissed his daughter. Sue, — 
Jess had to do hit, ter be polite. 

But I jess kep a-honin' aftuh youh. 

Youh cousin accused me ob lookin' glum, 

An youh sistuh said Ise blue — 
Dey's bofe mighty nervous, an I nussed em some 

But I jess kep a-honin' aftuh youh. 



AND OTHER POEMS 87 

Youh Mammy's well an' so is youh Pap; 

An' de res'; dey's all well too — 
Ise hol'in youh bes' fren' on mah lap 

An, honey, jess a-honin' aftuh youh. 

Dis bein' bergaged am nice youh see 

An I know^s whut youh'll do; 
You'll come home an make it pleasant foah me, 

Caze Ise jess kep a-honin' aftuh youh. 

But doan youh go to hurrin* home, 

Foah I can worry through 
Lak Ise been a doin'; but twell youh come 

I'll jess keep a-honin aftuh youh. 



Poppies 

I planted some blood-red poppies, 

When the buds w^ere bursting forth, 
In the days of pregnant nature. 

When the sun was drifting north; 
I planted them by the doorstep 

And watched them sprout and grow 
And they whispered a strange, wild story 

That only the poppies know. 

I w^hispered to them each evening 

And each returning dawn 
They called me forth from dreamland 

'Till the summer w^as past and gone; 
And after the frosts of autumn 

Had passed, with their red and gold. 
Their lotus fragrance lingered. 

Like the race of a tale that's told. 



88 CHILD SLAVES 

One morning I opened my casement 

And flung the shutters wide 
And a bright faced, radiant angel, 

Stood where the poppies died; 
And he said; "I have watched, unnoticed. 

Since a forgotten day," 
But the poppies story Ungered 

And the angel w^ent away. 

I watched his wondrous passing, 

With no wild throb in my breast, 
Down the astral way of silence 

To the stillness of the west— 
Beyond the w^ay and the silence. 

Some place, where I shall be free, 
The bright, red poppies are blooming 

And whispering and waiting for me. 



A Few Patent Facts 

Todder day I hearn a felluh 

Say dere wasn' any Gaud, 
Charvin stone up in de mountins 

An dat Moses wah er fraud. 
But I reckons dem commandments 

Dat ole Moses toted bac' 
To de chill'ns in de valley. 

Am a hahd an stubbohn fac'. 
Seems ter me de way he got 'em. 

Or de monf an day and yeah, 
Doan make sech a sight ob diffuns 

Jess so long as dey am heah. 



AND OTHER POEMS 89 

Den he sayed man evoluted 

F'm er lil' chunk ob gum — 
Ef he did Ise bettin money, 

He's bin evolutin some! — 
But dat miracle ob Adam 

Doan strech mah b'leif as fur- 
As de thousan \iV odders 

Whut dis felluh sayed occur — 
Ise not honein' foah somebody 

To come roun' an make hit cleah 
How we gets heah, foah hits sho'ly 

Mighty certain w^e am heah. 

Den he sayed dat Faro's ah'my 

Wasn' drownded in de sea; 
But Ah'd lak ter know whut dat has 

Gotter do wif him er me. 
I doan reckon Mastuh'll ax us 

Much about dat happenin,' 
But He's apt to question clos'ly 

Whut we am an whut we's bin. — 
Spose hit did or did'n' happen 

Hit doan hep us now er mite — 
Nevuh w^as intended to hep 

No one but de IsraeUte. 

Den he sayed dem Hebrew chill'ens 

Nevuh wah in any fiah, 
An he spressed himsef as certain 

Dat ole Jonah wah er liah. 
Sposin he am right erbout hit, 

Dat woan sorter hep him thro' 
Whin Ole Mastuh say: "Look heah, suh, 

Ise been heahin erbout youhl" 



90 CHILD SLAVES 

Seems ter me he's chasin shadders — 
Dats bout all he's evuh done — 

Doan he know dere ain' no shadders 
On de side to'ahds de sun! 



Lucille 

[To my little daughter, Lucille, on her fifth birthday, August 26, 1903.] 

Standing yet within the shadows 

Of the portals of the day, 
Gazing out o'er youth's rose meadow^s 

To'ard the vague and far away. — Refrain: 

Little girl, my own, my sweetheart; 
O, Lucille, Lucille, Lucille; 
At thy feet, O radiant princess 
Let me kneel, O let me kneel. 

With the morning spell's assistance 

Kissing rosy finger tips 
To the w^an shapes in the distance; 

Wondering with half parted lips. — Refrain: 

This 1 wish you, little maiden; 

May the stars so move above 
That you'll reach the sunset laden 

With the chiefest sheaves of love. — Refrain: 

May bright angel bands convoy you, 

As you sail a jasper sea; 
May nor storm or cloud annoy you; 

May life's voyage tranquil be. — Refrain: 

May you look not, save in pity. 

On the tovsrers and minarets. 
Of that dark and gloomy city. 

In the land of vain regrets. — Refrain; 



AND OTHER POEMS 91 



Georgia Lullaby 

De mammy angel lighted huh can'l's in de sky. 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam'; 
She'll done come aroun' wif huh snuffers, by-um-by. 

Sleep, mah Ul' white lam', 
De crickerdee am singin' his, "cheep, cheep, cheep," 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam', 
De bull frog am a-mumblin, "knee-deep, knee-deep." 

Sleep, mah HI' white lam'.— Refrain: 

Sl-e-e-e-e-p m-mah honey, sl-e-e-e-e-p m-mah baby; 

Sl-e-e-e-e-p mah honey, twell de day; 
Sl-e-e-e-e-p m-mah honey; sl-e-e-e-e-p m-mah baby, 

Mammy'll keep the skeers away. 

De hants and de hoots gotter stay away from youh, 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam', 
Dey's nothin' gwinter take youh, else it take mammy too, 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam'. 
Mammy gwineter watch by de one she love de bes'. 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam'. 
She know he mighty ti'ad an' he need er good res'. 

Sleep, mah hi' white lam'.— Refrain: 

De lam's quit deir playin' and dey's got mighty still, 

Sleep, mah Ul' white lam', 
Dey's sleepin by deir mammys on de moonshiny hill. 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam', 
Lil' bird got he haid tuckered unner Ul' wing. 

Sleep, mah Ul' white lam', 
A-waitin' foah de mornin' man to tell um, "wake an' sing!" 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam'.— Refrain: 



92 CHILD SLAVES 

O, de mammy angel lighted huh can'l's in de sky, 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam', 
Spect dere'll be a lettuh shinin' in um by-um-by. 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam'; 
Nice lil' lettuh foah mammy's lil' boy. 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam', 
Tellin' whah he done los' he top an' he toy. 

Sleep, mah lil' white lam', — Refrain: 



To an Absent One 

It is marah, marah, sweetheart; never, never, as of yore, 
Will I take you in my arms and whisper, peace; 

Fanes are shattered, idols fallen, and with heavy heart and 
sore 
I am w^aiting, all impatience, for release. 

Oh, blessed, blessed memories — like a dream of Paradise; 

Oh, lotus laden moments of the past; 
Oh, 'tis hard to weigh love's anchor in the bay of laughing 
eyes, 

Knowing that no more therein it will be cast. 

Where the Southern Cross is brightest, in a sunny far-off 
land. 

In a lonely wanderer's camp beside the stream, 
I will seem to feel the strokings of my absent baby's hand. 

Of a face and form I cherished 1 will dream. 

When the many colored songster wakes the woodland 
with his call 

And the mist comes rolling upw^ard from the sea, 
I will calm my troubled spirit and will pray the God of all 

That some day I may reach Paradise and Thee. 



AND OTHER POEMS 93 



The Songs of Erin 

Let me sing the songs of Erin; they are music to my soul; 
With their touch of human pathos and the Hit within their 

troll. 
Unto me these are the grandest; 1 for them a reverance 

own; 
For they draw me nearer heaven; nearer to the Great 

White Throne. 
Let me sing the songs of Erin; in them lurk a subtile power. 
Which can broaden narrow defiles; Hghten up the darkest 

hour; 
Make a garden of the desert; lift the soul and bear it far 
Up along the astral highway running past the polar star. 

Let me sing the songs of Erin; songs of noble life a part; 
Life which glows, and gleams and glistens only in an Irish 

heart; 
They have power to sway me, soothe me, while an alien 

ministrel's lay 
Rouses in me all the latent impulse of the beast of prey. 

Let me sing the songs of Erin; with their tenderness and 

tears. 
And their strong, clear notes of patience, sounding down 

thro all the years; 
With them comes the rest of sunset and the promise of the 

dawn; 
With them all the ages harvests augur well for farther on. 

Let me sing the songs of Erin; when the threatening clouds 

hang low; 
Let me sing them in the southland, where the balmiest 

breezes blow; 



94 CHILD SLAVES 

Let me sing them eastward, westward, northward; all have 

of them need, 
For they are as universal as the ancient Keltic creed. 

Let me sing the songs of Erin; they are mine to have and 

hold; 
Clear notes of eternal victory are within their measures 

rolled. 
With them I can meet all futures, sturdily and unafraid; 
With them rest beneath the bay trees, when the ghosts of 

Time are laid. 



Sleep On, Beloved 



Sleep on, beloved; 1 know not to what country far my 
footsteps tend, 

Now what deep, turbid waters roll between me and the 
journey's end, 

For you, beloved, the weary march is over now for aye 
and aye; 

For me remains the sentry's beat, the jungle path, the 
weary day. 

But take this token to confirm the word and sign of weep- 
ing eyes, 

Enswathe the know^Iedge, and believe I would not have it 
otherwise. 

Sleep on, beloved, the devious ways allotted must be 

threaded through; 
My feet are laggards, but my heart, like some fleet bird, 

flies on to you 
Hope might revive, might bud, might bloom, but ah; I 

would not have it so; 



AND OTHER POEMS 95 

This Dead Sea fruit is sweet to me, and why, beloved, I 

do not know. 
There are strange dreams, wild dreams and acts in the 

great ledger of our years. 
But strangest of them all is why we cling to heart-aches 

and to tears. 

Sleep on, beloved, 'tis better that the darker, coarser clay 

remain; 
To march with progress through the storm and bitter chill 

of autumn rain; ' 

To in the midnight watch awake, to sleep and dream of 

might-have-been. 
Beloved, our souls are formed by those w^e touch among 

our fellow^men. 
Then let me touch through darksome days, when from 

this mist to fairer skies, 
My star moves on, I'll greet you, love, within the groves of 

Paradise. 



Nothing Can Matter Now 

I have followed adown the valley ways. 

The w^ill-o'-the-w^isp of fame. 
And toiled on the hills, through tiresome days, 

In the pride of my father's name; 
I have ridden through blood-red mist of strife 

For the praise of the low hung brow. 
And called this valets breathing, "Life" — 

But nothing can matter now. 



% CHILD SLAVES 

I have feared, as the cringing slave must fear. 

And scoffed as the mockers scoff; 
I have hushed the music that sounded near 

To Hst to a strain far off; 
I have fought and smiled v^hen the skies were brass. 

So that I might endow — 
But they dug her a grave in the whispering grass 

And nothing can matter now. 

I have watched in the chill of an autumn rain, 

A summer march and wheel, 
In a land w^here the dead past answers pain 

As iron answers steel; 
I have raised a shrine for the sons of men 

And marvelled to see them bow 
And call it a thing beyond their ken — 

But nothing can matter now. 

I have walked the earth with a radiant band. 

And crawled v/ith the underside. 
And pitched my tent in a ghost-filled land 

Where the dawn and night divide; 
I have chafed at the thought of the paltry wage 

That the uncrowned kings allow 
To the one who toils in this present age — 

But nothing can matter now. 

I have loved— and the love of the angel'swere crime 

Beside it— but tempting fate 
I laid it aside to dwell for a time 

In the tents of the Tribe of Hate; 
I have sworn with Regulus overhead 

And at noon have payed my vow — 
But they took her out where they take the dead 

And nothing can matter now. 



AND OTHER POEMS 97 



Katie ^arry 



O, the odor of the dilHsk, 

With a glimpse of hills of green, 
Often come to me at twilight, 

Though an ocean rolls between; 
Aye, no evening ever deepens 

But there comes a voice to me, 
From a past, too near to heaven. 

In the valley of the Lee. 

Misty memories; dusky pictures; 

Hill, and dale, and riverside. 
Bordered by the dread that entered 

On the night the banshee cried — 
Through the stretch of years and seasons. 

Miles of land and leagues of sea, 
I've remembered you, my Katie. 

And the valley of the Lee. 

You cannot return unto me. 

Though my heart keeps calling through 
Each returning dawn and sunset; 

It is I who go to you; 
When I've stood the watch appointed 

And Time's shackles fall from me, 
I will meet you, Katie Barry; 

In the valley of the Lee. 

Despite all the fears of childhood 

And the creed of riper age. 
Despite all the learned abstractions 

Of the prophet, seer or sage. 



98 CHILD SLAVES 

I am clinging to the augur 

When you smiled and. said to me: 

"Meet me, Larry, I'll be waitin' 
In the valley of the Lee." 

Time I'm marking — only marking — 

O, I'm longing, mavourneen. 
For that other Golden Valley 

And a walk with you, colleen — 
Aye, God rest you, Katie Barry, 

Sleeping 'till Eternity, 
In the blessed land of Erin, 

In the valley of the Lee. 



Wondering 



'Tis long years since she left me, yet the sorrow is as 

keen 
As when that far, gray morning found me questioning 

between 
The quick world and the sepulchre, soul stricken at my 

loss. 
And counting all the gifts of earth, and heaven's promise, 

dross. 

And O, the bitter, barren years! Earth's shoutings, earth's 

acclaim; 
The glitter of it's pageantry; the fever of it's fame; 
It's myriad, idle opiates, in which the clod believes, 
Alike are empty, valueless, dead, windblown autumn 

leaves. 



AND OTHER POEMS 99 

And O, I wonder, wonder, at low twelve, amid the hush; 
When God's stars speak His language, putting words of 

men to blush; 
I wonder when the Dipper sinks and pearl gray blends 

with blue; 
If, when I meet her, she will be the little girl I knew. 

I wonder ere the dew is gone, and in the noonday's heat. 
If when my ears are ope'd to hear the tinkling of her feet 
Upon the tesselated pave, if it will, as of yore. 
Be sound of girlish footfalls, or a music more mature. 

I wonder, were my eyes unveiled, if I could see her now, 
And if it is her hand that rests so often on my brow. 
And when I reach the sunset camp and shadows grow 

more deep, 
I wonder will she take my hand and lull me into sleep. 

But when the biouvac's over and reveille calls me forth 
To march in God's eternity, where east and west and north 
And south are things forgotten, as all limits then shall be, 
I know that she will meet me and that both will then be 
free. 



Honey, t^ine 

Honey, deah, Ise waitin', wukin' 
Doin' jess mah lebbel bes', 
Cordin' to mah lights an' lettin* 
Gaud Ermighty do de res'; 
An' I reckons ef I sorter 
Happen to hew from de line. 
In de fullness ob his mercy 
He'll luk to hit, honey, mine. 



100 CHILD SLAVES 

Sorter take he mighty broad-ax 
An* jess shave hit staight an* true, 
Sos de wuk woan mar de buildin* 
In youh Ian* Ise comin* to; 
Dere, I reckons, we'll be Hbbin 
In er mansion mighty fine — 
Youh an* me an' all de odders 
Dat wese lubbed heah, honey, mine. 

Preacher sometimes faults me mighty. 
An some odders tell me fac's — 
Aftuh dey has happened, honey. 
But I kaint grow in deir trac's; 
Some kin wuk in oak an' warnut. 
Some hab gotter hab sof pine. 
An* Ole Mastuh knows he business 
Better'n we does, honey, mine. 

I knows now why Ise lef* waitin*. 
Dough I didn* ustuh know, 
Mastuh saw Ise mighty lil* 
So he gif me chanct to grow; 
An* heah in dis lil* cabin, 
Wif de mo'nin glo*y vine 
Climbin* round de doah, Ise growin* 
To youh bigness, honey, mine. 

So Ise jess a-waitin', wukin', 
Doin' jess de bes* I can, 
Tryin* to mak mysef* ovuh 
In de tallness ob er man; 
An* when I has done hit, honey, 
Yonduh, whah de day stahs shine. 
In de nevuh fadin* gahduns, 
ril be wif youh, honey, mine. 



AND OTHER POEMS lOt 



The Soul of the Artist 

His hands were scarred by the tools of toil. 
And his brow was furrowed by care; 

And his step was halt and his frame was bent. 
But the soul of the artist was there. 

When the sun came out of the far, gray east. 

It found him doing his best, 
And true to his task, when it shut the door 

Of its chamber in the west. 

No flaring lines in a burdened press. 

Invested him with renown; 
No record, on earth, of his deeds was kept; 

But the angels wrote them down. 

The world passed by, with a scornful smile. 

And assigned him low estate; 
But God looked down on the work he did 

And reckoned him with the Great. 

And whether it was the hush-ah-hush. 
Of the scythe, or the evening prayer 

That mounted tremblingly, haltingly up. 
The soul of the artist was there. 

One day he dropped, with his harness on. 

And one of God's golden cars 
Stopped under the arch of the astral way, 

Swung down from the farthest stars. 

And a herald cried, to the franchised soul; 

"I may not return alone; 
I bear the souls of your brotherhood 

To where they may claim their own." 



102 CHILD SLAVES 



lister Chicken, T^lease Roost High 

There's a camp meeting running at Rocky Ford 

And the preacher Ukes chicken pie; 
But Ise made up my mind to serve the Lord, 

If the chickens will just roost high. 
Ise been a powerful sinner man 

And a mansion in the sky 
I wants to get, and I think I can, 

If the chickens w^ill just roost high, — Chorus: 

Mister Chicken, p-1-e-a-s-e roost high! 
Mister Chicken, p-1-e-a-s-e roost high! 
You am gwine to loose me a harp and a crown. 
Mister Chicken, if you don't roost high. 

I listens to the words that's said, 

I hears the sinners cry; 
But these words, all the time, keep a-runnin thro my 
head: 

"Mister Chicken, wont you please roost high?" 
I likes you baked, or boiled, or stewed, 

I likes you in a fry; 
But old Satan's done had me interviewed 

And I wants you to please roost high. — Chorus: 

I can keep from fighting, deed I can. 

When some one kicks my dog; 
I can keep from swearing, like a pirate man. 

When I tries to pen a hog; 
I can keep away from the old corn juice, 

I can cut out the rye; 
But as sure as shooting it'll be no use 

If the chickens don't roost high. — Chorus: 



AND OTHER POEMS 103 

I aint skeered of the dark, nor ghosts of the dead. 

For I can whistle a chune; 
But I has to go by Johnson's shed 

And this am the dark of the moon! 
And Johnson's yaller legged hens 

Are a- most too fat to fly; 
I sees the finish of a gentlemens. 

Mister Chicken, if you don't roost high. — Chorus: 



Mistah Johnsing Done Qot He Chicken 
House Locked 

Ise got to eat co'n bread for a while, wif bacon on de 

side. 
An' its goin' to go right bad wif me, aftah havin chicken, 

fried; 
It's goin' to go most powerful hard, but I hopes to change 

it soon; 
Foah deres some nights a' comin' now when dere wont 

be no moon. 
Ise visited Mistuh Johnsing's house wif ma gum, shoes an' 

ma sack; 
But Johnsing done insulted me an' I aint a-gwine back. 

Foah — Mistuh Johnsing done got he chicken house 

locked; 
He done put a fas'en on de doah; 
Got a big bull dog to snoop around, 
An' I aint goin' back no moah; 
Ise fond ob chicken, but dat dog aint gwine to 

get no chance. 
To chase me ober de back yard fence an* ruin 

dese Sunday pants. 



i04 CHILD SLAVES 

I'd like to know what de white folks mean, wif deir 

suspcious ways, 
A-buyin* dogs dat set up night an' do deir sleepin' days; 
Now look at Mistuh Johnsing's dog — I tell you it's de 

truth- 
He acts like he been crossed in love, back somewhar in he 

youth; 
I conld unlock dat hen house doah an' I wouldn't be no 

hog. 
But dey aint no key in dis wide world dat would unlock dat 

dog. — Foah, Etc: 

Ise goin' to burn mah rabbit foot an' move way from dis 

town. 
An' go someplace whar folks doan try to keep de black 

man down; 
Dese white folks am a scrumptious set, dey do jest as dey 

please, 
Next thing youh know dey'll learn deir hens to roost up in 

de trees; 
Dey'll miss me long bout whitewash time, but Ise suah 

gwine to go, 
Someplace w^hah dey doan keep cranky dogs an' locks on 

de henhouse doah. Foah, Etc: 



rooming Qlories 

Mo'nin' glo'ies, mo'nin' glo'ies, O, deys res'ful to de eyes; 
An' Ah wonduhs am dey growin' in the fiel's ob Pahadise. 
In dem fiel's hits alius mo'nin' an' dey aint' no noonday 
heat; 



AND OTHER POEMS 105 

Nor no deep dus' in de highway, foah to sco'tch ouh tiahed 

feet. 
Deed Ah hopes deys growin yonduh, dough Ah shuahly 

will be swo'n 
Dat dey hoi's a lot ob backache, when deys growin in de 

co'n. 
Shuah Ah likes to see em growin. an a-twinin' roun de 

briahs; 
Wif jess heah an deah red blossoms, like er lot ob little 

Rahs, 
An a-reachin' foah de beech lim's, in deir girly sort ob 

way, 
An a-closin up dey posies in de middle ob de day. 
O. deys scrumptious in de ebenin* and deys beautious in 

de mo'n; 
But deys got er lot ob backache, when deys growin* in de 

co'n. 
Ah knows some folks calls em cusses, an* looks on em as 

er bhght; 
But Old Mastuh he done made em an Ise bettm deys all 

An' we coulden' foad to loose em, any moah dan loose de 

sun, 
Foah Old Mastuh ain' a-wukin' an* a makin* things foah 

fun. 
Dat deys heah am proof deys needed— mighty good proof, 

shuahs youh bo'n — ^ 

Dough dey does hoi* lots ob backache, when deys growin 

in de co'n. 
An* sometimes when Ise a-restin' in de shade erlong de 

creek. 
All dey posies seem so human, dat Ah halfway>eahs em 

speak; 



106 CHILD SLAVES 

Foah dey pears jess lak de people; red an* brown, an* 

white an' blue. 
Black an* purple, streaked an* speckled, an* some shot wif 

yaller, too. 
Some looks mighty fresh an* sassy; some looks droopin*, 

old an* wo'n; 
But dey all has de same backache, when deys growin* in 

de co'n. 

Mo*nin glo'ies, mo'nin glo'ies, let em nod an' let em grow, 
An' Ah'll Stan* all ob deir backache, foah Old Mastuh 

made em so. 
An* Ah'll wait to know de reason why deys growin* neaf 

dese skies 
Twell Ah meets de Mastuh Gahd'ner, in de fiel's ob Paha- 

dise. 
Tain foah me to fuss about em, nor to heap on dem mah 

sco*n. 
Dough dey does hoi' lots of backache, when deys growin* 

in de co*n. 



Ag. 



am 



I've seen again, this summer day, 
The bright sidereal gleams 

That shimmer down the astral way 
From the far land of dreams. 

Once more I've heard a voice today 
And felt a presence near, 

And knelt as I've not knelt to pray, 
Since a forgotten year. 



AND OTHER POEMS 107 

And I have wondered if my sin 

Has caused the far land's gate 
To swing forever in and in 

Or whether it be Fate. 

What deed of despite have I done 

Unto Eternity, 
That of its myriad voices one. 

One only, comes to me? 

Yet could I know she holds the gate, 
From w^hence the far gleams come, 

I would be thrice content to wait 
For light till I get home. 

The voice that comes, could 1 but know^ 

'Twere hers I would be filled 
With satisfaction deep, although 

All other sounds were stilled. 



The Wind That Shakes the ^arle^ 

God bless the hills of Donegal, 

God bless the Tyrone meadows. 
So full iv tinder memories, 

Iv poethry an* shadows; 
God bless th' hivinly days of youth. 

Whin me an' Maggie Farley 
Led all the lads an' lasses to; 

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley. 

Me kin and Oi, St. Patrick's day. 
Wore green, an* good an* mellow 



108 CHILD SLAVES 

We got; while her's another day, 

Paraded in th* yellow- - 
Whut matter if yez grandsire fought 

Wid Cromwell or Prince Charley? 
'Tis all forgot whin thrippin' to 

•The Wind That Shakes the Barley." 

Whin love wanst spakes unto yez heart. 

His voice ye will be heedin'; 
He knows not iv the jealousies 

Iv creed, or race, or breedin'l — 
Whut cared Oi for the gauger's trade 

Pursued be Dinnis Farley, 
Droonken wid wine iv Maggie's eyes, 

An' "Wind That Shakes the Barley?" 

Whut cared Oi if her brother, Moike, 

Iv Coast Guards wor th' Colonel? 
Whut cared Oi if her whole male kin 

Wor fit for fires infernal? 
Whut cared Oi if the Divvil's name 

Wor Moike, or Dinnis, Farley? 
Houldin' her hand an' thrippin' to 

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley." 

Whut cared she if th' Doughertys 

Wor smugglin' mooch or any. 
Or if they droonk the mountain dew 

Thot paid no king a penny? 
For her there wor no Dougherty, 

For me there wor no Farley — 
'Twas Terrince an' his Maggie, an' 

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley." 

Good luck has followed on the day 
Oi down in Antrim waited. 



AND OTHER POEMS 109 

Whoile Cousin Finnin iv Tyrone, 

Kept all th' Coast Guards baited 
Along th' Londonderry shore, 

Whoile Oi an' Maggie Farley 
Wor married, whoile th' poiper played 

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley." 

Now; whin me conduck's not th' best. 

An' she says: "May th' Divvil 
Fly 'way wid yez, an' kape yez, too, 

Ye taisin' imp iv aivil"; 
Oi take th' coorse all married min 

Should take, an' do not parley, 
But smile on her, an whustle low 

"The Wind that Shakes the Barley." 

Thin, wid th' ould loight in her eyes. 

She says: "God bless ye, Terrince, 
Although sometimes ye vex me sowl, 

Almost beyant forbearance; 
But over all, ye are th' Prince 

Thot wanst won Maggie Farley," 
An' thin we trip a measure iv 

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley." 



Incomplete 

This life we live is so incomplete; 
So incomplete; so incomplete; 
Its misty visions so passing sweet, 
Its joys so quickly flown; 



no CHILDSLAVES 

That out in the deathless realms of space, 
Must be a place. 
Where face to face. 
Beneath the star of desert or grace. 
We'll know as we are known. 

Somewhere, someplace, is recompense. 

Is recompense, is recompense; 

Where the fearsome child or halting sense 

No longer fears the rod; 
Where the mystic chords that elude us here 
To a wakened ear. 
So sweet and clear. 
Will bring the anodyne of fear. 

From the chloral halls of God. 

Whe wander-lust of our feet, my dear. 
Our feet, my dear; our feet, my dear; 
Is earnest that we are but aliens here. 

That life is still ahead. 
Somewhere — no matter what they say. 
Not far away. 
In endless day. 
We'll meet, where flowers bloom alway, 

The dead who are not dead. 

Some place, where skies are deeper blue. 

Are deeper blue, are deeper blue; 

The dreams we dream will all come true, 

Hope cease to barren be. 
Someday the chains that chafe and gall. 
And bind us all. 
That fright the small. 
From our enfranchised souls will fall — 

Someday we shall be free. 



AND OTHER POEMS 111 



Lucy's House 



One day in spring a messenger 

Beside the fresh-turned furrow stood 
And said: "I bid you go to her 

Who met death in her maidenhood; 
O, hasten, lest you come too late, 

Divorce the furrow, cap and blouse; 
Henceforth the cowl; grim stallions wait 

Before the door of Lucy's house." 

Last night a presence stood within 

My room and said to me: "Forsooth, 
I've searched your life for sign of sin 

But only found the bind of youth; 
You've looked upon your soul as dark 

And shrank from that you would espouse; 
'Twill different be when standing stark 

Before the gate of Lucy's house." 

"The nearer, life be naked new, 

The quicker will it bell and book 
And candle bring, and question, too; 

'What curse goes with these things I took? 
What vain form must I mumble through. 

Effective trembling souls to touse? — 
But there be nothing naked newl 

Within the walls of Lucy's house." 

My weary feet go up and down 

O'er wind-swept hill, through boggy vale; 
By countryside and in the town 

I hear the gossips idle tale; 



112 CHILD SLAVES 

Of lovers lingering at the bars, 

Of candles burned by anxious spouse. 

But no one dreams the steady stars 
Are tapers tall in Lucy's house. 



Gone On 

Gone on to sing an unknown song. 
To lisp in an unknown tongue, 

In an unknown land, where skies are fair; 
Where vespers never are rung. 

Gone on, across the mystic stream 
Where hope faints, at whose brink 

The man immortal rises where 
The mortal stooped to drink. 

Gone on, to say: "I know, I know," 

Where we may only hope; 
To walk, bright-eyed, in lustrous light, 

Where we may only grope. 

Gone on, to learn what we may not. 

While sealed unto the earth; 
To know that life and death are but 

A process of our birth. 

By the name I knew and loved her here 

I may not know her there. 
But I'll know the touch of baby hands, 

In Heaven — or anywhere. 



AND OTHER POEMS 113 



Lazarus 

["But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that thou, in thy life time, re- 
ceivedest thy good things, and likewise, Letzarus evil things. — "] 

Between the walls of measured time, in God's Eternity, 

No prophet yet has spoken, save of things w^hich he could 
see; 

No dreamer ever dreamed a dream but what there lay be- 
hind 

Some fact, or some formed future threw^ the shadow on 
his mind. 

And so the wondrous vision of the Christ of Galilee 
Finds substance in the history of a race both bond and 

free; 
A race that for the guardian's wage have passed beneath 

the rod; 
But God is w^ith the Celt because the Celt is near to God. 

Content with tawdry furnishings, self-centered in their pride, 
The heirs of Time have stood aloof from him who walked 

outside 
The mud daubed wall of custom, with its man-wrought, 

caste-bound gate. 
That marks a line between mankind where God w^ould 

hesitate. 

What need the one who walks outside care for the paltry 

bars 
That keep him from the ones who feast? They keep them 

from the stars! 
His virtue is not livered, nor his strength in gold and lace; 
He knows there be no crowns save at the ending of the 

race. 



114 CHILDSLAVES 

He draws his rugged manhood from some distant Avatar 
Who stood breasthigh to Deity ere Abram saw the star 
And followed from the plains of Ur toward the western 

sea, 
Leaving behind the splendor and the glory of Chaldea, 

And while the Teuton guards his herds; patrols his burst- 
ing barns; 

The Celt is on the mountain side, day-dreaming, by hi« 
cairns; 

He has erased all passing things from his philosophy, 

And in their place, with fire tipped pen, has wrote: 
''Eternity!" 

When Saxon boundaries narrow and they mourn a king- 
dom lost, 

The Celt, if truth and worth abide, can count no other 
cost; 

With simple, child-like wonderment, half allied to sur- 
prise, 

He views the Latin's dolor at the hardness of the skies. 

The shrinking of the tawny ones, the grovelling of the 

dark. 
The wolf fang and the jackal cry of all the breed who 

hark 
Back to the Goth and Vandal for concept of great and 

least. 
To him are stranger than the dream behind the wanton's 

feast. 

What matter if the idle mock, to entertain the crowd? 
Is it not written in the book that other sheaves have 
bowed? 



AND OTHER POEMS 115 

What matter if a crumbling crown and purple be with- 
held? 

Can there be guaranty of peace when angels have re- 
belled? 

The body cannot mould the soul, no more than gibe and 

slur 
Or commendation of the world, can fashion character; 
And whatsoever any book of deep conjecture shows, 
There's somewhere in Eternity a reigning God who knows. 



Irish Counties 

DubHn an' Kings, wid th' Sassenach bane iv thim; 
Waterford, Wexford; Wicklow, in th' thrain iv thim; 
Limerick an' Clare, th' whole worruld hov had gain iv thim, 
Monaghan, Armagh, Kilkenny, Tyrone; 
Meath, Tipperay; there's music an' soul to thim; 
Carlow, Queens, Leitrim, Antrim; there's a roll to thim; 
Kerry, Kildare an' Cavan, there's a troll to thim; 
Sure, an' th' piper could play thim, och hone, 

Down Donegal, Fermanagh, th' green iv thim; 
Roscommon, Sligo, an' Derry, th' queen iv thim; 
Westmeath an' Mayo— jist whiff th' potheen iv thim; 
Truth, in thimsilves they're perfection iv tone; 
Longford an' Louth, there's a sweep an' a swing to thim; 
Galway an' Cork, there's a challenge an' ring to thim; 
Speedin' th' day whin their sons will be king to thim; 
Sure, an' it's comin', me darlint, och hone. 



116 CHILD SLAVES 



Fm Afraid When the Dark Comes Down 

The sun has shut the purple door 

Of his chamber in the west; 

Like homing doves my thoughts fly on 

To the one I love the best. 

The earth has doffed her regal robes 

And donned her somber gown — 

Put your arms around me; cuddle me close; 

I'm afraid when the dark comes down. — Chorus: 

Put your arms around me; cuddle me close; 

You're the one I love the best; 

My world is the circle of your arms, 

When the light fades from the west, 

All fears and worries creep away 

And I reck not of renown, 

When your arms are 'round and I'm cuddled 

close 
And the dark comes trooping down. 

I listen to the cricket's song 

And all the sounds of day 

Seems like some half forgotten strain 

Sung faintly, far away. 

The country lanes are ghostly dim 

And the shadows lurk in town — 

Put your arms around me; cuddle me close; 

I'm afraid when the dark comes down. — Chorus: 

The fireflies dance, by the woodland path. 
And the leaves are strangely still; 
The glow-worm lights his evening lamp, 
By the old log on the hill; 



AND OTHER POEMS 117 

The stars come shyly, one by one. 

As jewels in night's crown — 

Put your arms around me; cuddle me close; 

I'm afraid w^hen the dark comes dow^n. — Chorus: 

The screech owl's voice comes ripplingly. 

Like a winter brook in pain. 

And the whip-poor-w^ill calls from the hill 

Where echoes soft entrain; 

The red bird's scarlet coat now seems 

Like to the thrush's brown — 

Put your arms around me; cuddle me close; 

I'm afraid when the dark comes down. — Chorus: 



Memories 

To the world I may be nameless; 

Being indexed with the poor; 
For my lack, perhaps, not blameless. 

Yet, I hold a pirate's lure 
Of blest memories of a valley. 

That 1 knew before my leap 
To the w^aist of the Plymouth's galley; 

There to pull a middle sweep. 

There the Shenandoah is sweeping; 

Down its moonlight flooded way; 
There the brightest stars are keeping 

Vigils, as on yesterday — 
Not one memory w^ould I barter. 

Not one whisper of the pines. 
For the order of the Garter, 

Or the spoils of all earth's mines. 



118 CHILD SLAVES 

There the grass has hid war's marring; 

Nature's cloak of charity, 
Has crept o'er the cannon's scarring, 

Hiding, so no eye may see 
Unsought wounds, and seeing harken, 

From the now unto the then — 
God be praised! though skies may darken. 

Once I walked and talked with men. 

Walked with men w^hose honor won me; 

Stalw^arts of the chivalrous line; 
Walked with morning dew^ upon me 

And the zest of living mine. 
Then the circle of existence 

Widened outw^ard, from the past. 
And the form of life's persistence 

In the mould of dreams was cast. 

Then the spirit, effervescent. 

Leaped, upcurling to'ard the stars. 
And the evening's silver crescent. 

Like some ancient Avatar's 
Promise of unblighted Aidenn's, 

Just adove the tree tops showed. 
And Diana and her maidens 

Gamboled dow^n the dusky road. 

It is not my pulse is slacking. 

That I hate these ankle chains; 
It is not that w^armth is lacking 

In the ichor of my veins; 
It is not my eyes are dimmer — 

Life is ever inner sight — 
It is that the moonbeams shimmer 

And the nymphs dance there, tonight. 



AND OTHER POEMS 119 



Maggie O'Brien 

Away wid yez, Maggie O'Brien, 

O* hone! an its sorry th' day, 
Thot Oi met yez, all smilin' an* sighin'; 

For me heart ye hov stolen away. 

Ah, sure, Oi reminder th* mornin* 

Yez coom, trippin' loight thro' th* dew; 

There moight hov bin augur*s an* warnin* 
But me eyes — they could only see you. 

Oi gave me heart into yez kapein* 

An* yez tuk ut wid laughter an' mirth, 

An* Oi wondered, behad, wur Oi slapein' 
Or walkin' clane off iv th* earth. 

Wid yez be me soid *twor high honor. 
To sit on th* stoyle thot's bechune 

Th' farrum iv yez cousin, O'Connor, 
An' thot iv me cousin Muldoon. 

An* joost as th' noight burds coom flyin' 
Oi'd take yez small hand in me fist; 

To take ut away ye'd kape tryin* 

But all ye wud say wud be: "Whist!,* 

Oi'm thinkin' ye'll alius remimber 
Th* noight iv O'Lafferty's ball; 

An' wan ither noight in Siptimber 
Whin we met in th' lane be th' Hall. 

But away wid yez Maggie O'Brien, 
Ut's th' robber ye are me colleen; 

Bad luck to yez smilin* an' sighin' 
An' to me for a witless spalpeen. 



120 CHILD SLAVES 



A Ballad of the Fair 

Oi've been to the fair, an' och hone, glory be, 
Th' dochter do say, Oi'm a soight for to see; 
Me blackthorn is bruk, an' me bid's in a sling, 
An* Oi'm nursin* a thurst thot is fit for a king. 

Oi wor drinkin' potheen, whin some wan says to me: 
"Be th' robes iv the Saints, Moike, they're lookin' for ye. 
Says Oi: "Who is lookin'?" says Dinnis O'Flynn, 
"Thot traitorous crew iv th' house iv McGinn.'' 

Said Oi: ''Let th' dirty tax githerers come on; 
'Tis little Oi care for th' divvil's own spawn:" 
Then grabbin' me blackthorn an' lacin' me vist, 
Oi truns back me shoulders, an' truns out me chist. 

Thin, githerin' me cousins, the Burkes an' O'Flynns, 
We hunted up thot Divvil's brood, th' McGinns; 
An' th' foight thot we had! Mavourneen, glory be! 
Afther havin' had thot, whut can matther to me! 

In th' thick iv th' fray, wid me stick in me hand, 
Oi met a McGinn, an' Oi says to him: "Stand 
An' take whut Oi give yez, me dear cosset lamb. 
An' Oi'll polish yez hid, loike th' arthist Oi am.', 

It w^or Terrince O'Leary. th' piper, who said: 
"Oi'm ninety years ould, an' full manny a hid 
Bruk to th' quane's taste hov Oi seen in me day, 
But nivver wan in sich a masterly way." 

Th' Father's been here, an' says he, wid a frown: 
"Moike, ye hov disgraced th' Church an' th' town; 
Ye've abused th' potheen, loike a poor, witless fool. 
But ye'U now pay th' piper — O, won't ye, me jewel?" 



AND OTHER POEMS 121 

Th* Father says: "Shame," an* perhaps he is roight; 
But whut does he know iv th* jies iv a foight? 
He*s a dear mon iv peace, an has been all his loife, 
Wid no call to thrim down aither neighbor or woife. 

Says he: "Ye'll do penance for all iv yez sins. 
An* th' spleen ye'v been nursin' again th* McGinns;" 
Sure Oi'll do th' penance, but let thim hov a care. 
Or Oi'll break all their hids at th' very next fair.' 



My Own Veople 

I celebrate men of my blood; men of my flesh and bone; 
Men who have fashioned kingdoms, with no kingdom of 

their ow^n; 
A race that seek the firing line w^here'er a flag's unfurled. 
The pioneers of tenderness, the guardians of the world. 

Since days before a record was they've fought to make 
men free 

And conquered on the mountain slopes and by the sound- 
ing sea; 

Some sleep where alien hands have carved their names in 
lasting stone; 

But more rest in the desert waste where God keeps watch 
alone. 

In that which makes for character and for eternal things 
They have been rich, but more than poor in that w^hich 

nurtures kings; 
The things which men have never coined nor passed by 

gage or deed, 
They've made as universal and as boundless as their creed. 



122 CHILD SLAVES 

When all things tangible shall pass and down some fiery 
way 

The world, that others worship so, speeds onward to de- 
cay. 

The race that bore the burden here w^ill come unto its 
ow^n, 

Will see the light beyond and read the name within the 
stone. 

You cannot nnderstand the song? 'twere marvelous if you 
could; 

Knowledge is of external things but w^isdom comes by 
blood; 

And none there be, save of my race, with mystic lore en- 
dowed, 

Who know the omen of the mist, the augur of the cloud. 

Therefore I celebrate grand men; men of my blood and 

bone; 
Men -who have fashioned kingdoms with no kingdom of 

their own; 
Men w^ho have borne the battle's brunt and testified by 

scars; 
Men of the Commonwealth of God, w^hose frontier is the 

stars. 



Lonesome 

Lonesome, O, I'm lonesome: 
1 shall never be otherwise; 
So long as my eyes shall follow 
The course that the arrow flies. 



AND OTHER POEMS 123 

Lonesome, O, rm lonesome; 
So little the hours containl 
The nights are sisters of sadness; 
The days are the brides of pain. 

Lonesome, O, I'm lonesome; 
The larger the throng: I own 
To an augumented sorrow. 
Which lessens when I'm alone. 

Lonesome, O, I'm lonesome; 
Where the jackals, for greed of pelf, 
Once roused me to fight for another, 
I cannot rouse for myself. 

Lonesome, O, I'm lonesome, 
And I cannot understand 
Why the pilot house is empty; 
With the bark in sight of land. 

Lonesome, O, I'm lonesome; 
For you my fair colleen; 
My absent one, it is marah-- 
O, I'm lonesome mavourneen. 



A Prayer 



O, God! for some name adequate; 
Some sound, by which to rightly brand 
The members of the sodden band, 
Who curse the church and curse the state. 
White hot, from some fierce furance fire 



124 CHILD SLAVES 

Where speech is molten, let me draw 
The chief sound of all damning law; 
To lash the ones whose sole desire 
Is to acquire, and still acquire. 

Give me, of words, more potent ones 
Than ever yet vouchsafed have been 
Unto Thine angels, or to men, 
In all the process af the suns; 
That 1 may mark the Mammon breed 
So men of flesh may understand 
The vileness of their leperous hand; 
And understanding may be freed 
From the miasma of their greed. 

I realize the poverty 

Of all tongues present, and of the past, 

And know there never yet was cast 

In Time, nor in Eternity 

Before Time was, words that would bear 

The idea; be comensurate 

To picture on the brain the state 

Of they who pray the groveler's prayer 

And by their sHmy purse strings swear. 

For this I know; had such words been 
They would, despite the law of death 
Of language, seize their former breath 
And tremble on the tongues of men; 
And, trembling, gather potent fire 
To burn the swart, squat sons of Greed 
And purge the world of the foul breed 
Whose sole ambition and desire 
Is to acquire, and still acquire. 



AND OTHER POEMS 125 



To H. R. M. Smith 

(On his departure for Ireland.) 

You are going back to Erin; 
Take my greetings to the sod — 
To the land of my forefathers, 
The fierce furance where our God 
Fines the gold that passes current 
Wheresoe'er a flag's unfurled - 
Whence He draws His steel and iron 
For the fashioning of the world. 

You are going back to Erin 

Where the men and women hold 

Heartbeats and the heart's traditions 

Of more value than mere gold; 

To the cradle of earth's warriors 

Who have suffered, without moan, 

While they hewed and fashioned kingdoms. 

With no kingdom of their own. 

You are going back to Erin; 

Tell them that in this far land 

They have blood and spirit brethren, 

Men who feel and understand. 

Men in whose veins, free and bounding. 

Leaps the red blood of the Celt: 

Men who hold to old traditions. 

Though the earth and heavens melt. 

You are going back to Erin; 
If again you set your face 
Westward, bring a bit of shamrock 
From the cradle of my race; 



126 CHILD SLAVES 

From the fair land where God fashiona- 
To be in Hfe's maelstrom hurled — 
All His pioneers of progress, 
All his guardians of the world. 



Mistuh MooUy Youh Ain no Friend oh Mine 

Mistuh Moon, look heah! Ise telling youh true 

Dis coon hab done got it in foah youh; 

Hit seems to me youh takes delight 

In foolin w^if me mos' ebery night. 

Las' night I crept to a hen house doah, 

An' de dawg wah ersleep, I could heah him snoah, 

An' den youh had to go an' shine — 

Mistuh Moon, youh ain' no friend ob mine. Chorus: 

Mistuh Moon, youh ain' no friend ob mine 
An' youh kaint patch it up wif me, 
Youh's de cause ob all de trouble Ise had 
An' youh jess woan let me be. 
1 w^ish 1 was tall as de sky 
An' had a breff so stout, 
Dat 1 could Stan' right heah dis night 
An' blow youh light plumb out! 

De odder night, on a park settee, 

1 wah holdin a yaller gal on mah knee, 

When mah wife come by, but it w^ah too dark 

Foah her to see us an' spoil our spark — 

Youh couldn' a stayed behin' dat cloud; 

Youh jess had to shine, an' shine out loud — 

Oh, yes, youh jess done had to shine — 

Mistuh Moon, youh ain' no friend ob mine. — Chorus: 



AND OTHER POEMS 127 

Dere's thin rine millyuns, down on de creek, 

An' deys been dead ripe foah mor'n a week; 

But dere's a man wif a gun sittin on de fence 

An' he's watchin' 'em — it ain' no pretense! 

I could get some ob 'em if youh'd stay hid, 

But den, youh'd do whut youh alius did; 

Youh'd jess hop out an' shine, an' shine- 

Mistuh Moon, youh ain' no friend ob mine! — Chorus: 



Qeorgia Love Song 



Choppin in de cotton an a-w^histlin ob er chune. 

Way down in Georgia; 
Pickin ob de banjo in de light ob de moon. 

Way down in Georgia; 
Sittin on er log wif mah Nanny Loo, 

Way down in Georgia; 
Wishin had er cabin to take huh to. 

Way down in Georgia. — Chorus: 

De rich can own dey houses and dey lan's. 

Cose mah honey; 
But dey kaint dis flutter an dis hol'in ' ban's, 

Wif all dey money; 
Kaint own dis ebenin nor de stars above. 

Nor dis happy; 
Dey kaint buy de moonlight an dey kaint buy love- 

O, I'll ast youh Pappy! 

Heart git to flutterin an it beat mighty quick. 

Way down in Georgia; 
Words get up in mah throat an stick, 

Way down in Georgia; 



128 CHILD SLAVES 

Take huh han an I pat it some, 

Way down in Georgia. 
She do de talkin foah Ise plumb dumb, 

Way down in Georgia. — Chorus: 

She snuggle lil' closer, lak she scairt ob harm, 

Way down in Georgia; 
Clare to goodness, she jes fit mah arm, 

Way down in Georgia — 
Doan w^ant no cabin, Ise tellin youh true, 

Way down in Georgia; 
Whilst Ise got dis log an mah Nanny Loo, 

Way dow^n in Georgia. — Chorus: 



Forced 

Today Oi seen a lady fair. 

Dressed in most sumcheous clothes, 
Embrace a tarrier in her arrums 

An' kiss his snubby nose! 

Ut looked loike woeful waste to see 
Her kiss thot black an' tan. 

But Oi'll not cuss her copiously. 
Until Oi've seen her man. 

For maybe w^hin she kisses him 

Ut gives her such a jog — 
Puts such a woild taste in her mouth, 

She has to kiss the dog! 



AND OTHER POEMS 129 



The T>rummer Boy 

Long and fierce had raged the battle. 
Dearly bought was each advance, 
By the scarred and battered legions 
Of the sunny land of France. 
Gloomily the Marshalls watched it — 
Watched and saw the centre swerve, 
Saw the eagles dip and falter 
As they met each fresh reserve. 
Sadly the great King of Commons 
Gazed upon his Spartan band 
As he murmured: "This is surely 
More than flesh and blood can stand.' 
Near him stood a youthful drummer, 
Ready, with his drum, to beat 
Signals to the wavering colums, 
And the Chief said: "Sound retreat!' 
But the boy looked on his sovereign, 
And he seemed to tower large, 
As he said: "I never learned it; 
I can only sound the charge!" 

"What if there be other foemen 

Waiting, couchant, on the marge 

Of the river — on the hillside — 

Sire! O, let me sound the charge! 

I have beat it at Marengo 

And the legions cheered me, Sire; 

As they forward swept, undaunted, 

To their baptism of fire! 

I have rolled it when your legions 

Met the horse of Murad Bey— 



130 CHILDSLAVES 

When the fierce sons of the desert 
Madly threw their lives away! 
I have sounded it in Syria, 
Sounded it on holy ground, 
While your eagles rushed to victory!'' 
And the solemn Chief said: "Sound!*' 
Loud the "Charge!" rolled, bold defiant, 
Forward vaulted foot and horse, 
Over comrade's bleeding body. 
Over foeman's mangled course! 

"See, O, Sire, the Old Guard sweeping. 

Like a storm, across the bridge! 

Wavering not! O, Sire, 'tis glory! 

Look! Our eagles crow^n the ridge! 

Vive la France! 'Tis victory! victory! 

See! the foemen break and fly! 

Look! O, Sire, no alien standard 

Shows against the clearing sky!" 

Said the Chief: "My boy, the glory 

Of this day belongs to you; 

For this you shall ride beside me 

When we march in Grand Review!" 

But the boy's lips paled, then purpled. 

As he reeled and to his side 

Pressed his hand and said: 'Twere glory! 

But I never more shall ride; 

Nevermore shall beat reveille; 

Nevermore shall sound the "charge!" 

Life is sweet — but, O, my Sovereign, 

I percieve that death is large!" 

"When my comrades, crowned with glory. 
Bivouac on the Field of Mars, 
I'll be camping out and distant 



AND OTHER POEMS 131 

In the white waste of the stars. 

Take my drum and hang it, Sovereign, 

Hang it in my country's halls — - 

Hang it close beside some standard. 

Where the light of glory falls. 

Seek and find my sweet- faced mother 

In her cot beside the Seine, 

Tell her that her boy — her drummer — 

Is not coming home again! 

Tell her Sovereign — is it sunset? 

Things so mist-wrapped seem, and gray. 

And the shouting of the legions 

Flutters dim and far away — 

Sire, embrace me! — tell her Sovereign, 

That I sounded the advance 

And then died, as she would have me. 

Died for her, and home, and France! 



Sentiment 

Just today I read a heresy; surely by the devil sent; 
"That the glory of this present is the lack of sentiment." 
And my spirit rose within me, like the tide's resistless 

sw^ell. 
And I cried: "Back, back, foul falsehood, back unto your 

home in hell!" 

Hitherto, from the beginning, when with life the world 

was jeweled. 
Sentiment has fashioned manhood; sentiment has reigned 

and ruled. 
It was sentiment drew Abraham from out the land of Ur, 
To build a shrine in Bethel and to form his character. 



132 CHILD SLAVES 

It was sentiment caused Moses to into the desert go; 

It was sentiment that broke the iron yoke of Pharaoh; 

It was sentiment that led the Hebrew people through the 

sea; 
Sentiment enabled Daniel to defy the kings decree. 

It was sentiment that hung the glory over Marathon; 
Sentiment has been the vanguard, down each way the 

race has gone; 
It was sentiment that bore the golden eagles of old Rome, 
From the cloudy springs of Egypt to the old Earth's ice 

crowned dome. 

Sentiment walled ancient Sparta, with a pulsing, living 

wall. 
And stood beside the Nazarene, in Pilate's judgment hall; 
Sentiment caused every martyr to count death as gain, 

not loss; 
It lead Paul before the headsman; it led Peter to the cross. 

Sentiment has ever bared its breast unto oppression's 

storms; 
It was sentiment that drew intrepid Luthur down to 

Worms. 
It was sentiment that fought the Duke of Alva, weary years; 
It was sentiment that w^idened all humanity's frontiers. 

It was sentiment that strengthened hearts in every holy 

war; 
It was sentiment that perched upon the white crest of 

Navarre. 
It was sentiment drew Wickliffe to the death he nobly 

died; 
It was strong men, moved by sentiment, who stemmed the 

pagan tide. 



AND OTHER POEMS 133 

It was sentiment that triumphed every time that right has 

won; 
Sentiment that led the farmers up the hill at Lexington; 
It was sentiment that led men, smiling, to a patriot's grave; 
Sntiment that struck the fetters from the galled limbs of 

slave. 

It is sentiment that keeps mankind from groveling in the 

mire; 
It is sentiment that in their hearts lights every sacred fire. 
Sans sentiment all things we know were bitter, dead sea 

fruit; 
Only sentiment divides the child of reason from the brute. 



Sympathy 

The lot or the caged canary 

Has never appealed to me; 

He comes by the way of a purchased nest. 

From a prisoned ancestry. 

He knows no sun-kissed meadows; 

No swaying twig of tree; 

It were death to open his gilded cage 

And cast him out as free. 

But O, to the prisoned eagle; 
That once in his life has know^n 
The trackless sky above the clouds 
And the highest jut of stone; 
My heart goes out in pity, 
Like a river to the sea. 
And I feel the heart oppression 
Of his staring tragedy. 



134 CHILD SLAVES 



The Old Virginia Spirit 

The Old Virginia Spirit! the clods have cursed it oft, 
And sneered at and derided him who bore its flag aloft; 
But there be tall, broad-shouldered souls where'er its 

banner flies; 
Than whom no grander ever stood beneath the arched 

skies. 

The Old Virginia Spirit hath power of its own; 

It makes a veteran of the boy before his beard be grown; 

Through it the basic knowledge to the budding wromen 

come. 
That they build nearest heaven when they rear a man 

child's home. 

The Old Virginia spirit! go dovyrn the far frontier 
Of that which makes for character, and of each pioneer 
Inquire: "What lured you hitherto?" and then return to me 
And bring me word of what they say— what each one 
answ^ers thee. 

The Old Virginia spirit; go back the Nation's ways. 

And count you each memorial that stands for glorious 

days! 
Inquire; "who raised this monument?" and when reply is 

made. 
Sneer you at Old Virginia — if you be unafraid! 

The Old Virginia spirit! God keep it in the land! 

And teach us how to wait until the world shall under- 
stand! 

O, give us patience, for w^e know somewhere this side the 
gates 

Of thine Eternity, our God, mankind's awakening waits! 



AND OTHER POEMS 135 



Other Days 

Down in front the crowd is cheering, 

They are calling for me now; 
1 must go and stand before them, 

I must smile on them and bow; 
I must take the flowers they throw me. 

As a token of their praise, 
But I'll see beyond, beyond them, 

Flowers and fields of other days. 

Let them shout; the fickle fever 

Of my fame is in the air; 
But their praise to me is empty 

As the ring I dare not wear. 
Empty as the golden circlet 

Which came to my willing hand. 
That which brought me Dead Sea appl< 

For he could not understand. 

I shall smile, for it is easy. 

Disenchanted, to be brave. 
And a smile was given woman 

Wherewith she might hide a grave. 
They will never guess my heartache. 

For I'll boldly meet their gaze, 
But I'm lonesome, lonesome, lonesome, 

For the love of other days. 

Let them think my hour of triumph 
Is this present and that they 

Are the ones who share it with me; 
This will please them, they will say 



136 CHILD SLAVES 

Pleasant things of me tomorrow; 

But my hour — my hour supreme. 
Was back in life's sun kissed gardens 

Ere this present was a dream. 

It is over; take these flowers! 

GodI I would that I could say 
This were Ufe — but life? I've known it; 

Known it in another day; 
When it was the chiefest treasure; 

When the world and stars were mine! 
Known it w^hen it shook my pulses 

With the vigor of new wine. 

And this? though days be extended 

Into years, and score by score, 
Years should pass, if love be absent, 

'Tis existence — nothing more! 
This, therefore, is but existence — 

Just a seeming — like a play — 
And love will not brook the footlights — 

Leave me! let me kneel and pray! 



The West Where the Sun Goes Down 

We have grow^n to love the glorious west, 

O, heart of mine, and know 
That into its stillness and its rest. 

Not to our dole we go. 
The dreams we dreamed w^hen the blood was warm; 

Our beauteous mirage town. 
Shall one take substance; the other form. 

In the west, where the sun goes down. 



AND OTHER POEMS 137 

'Twas not always thus; there were times, my dear. 

When the way w^e w^ould lengthen on; 
Times when the sunset seemed too near 

To the red glow of the dawn. 
But now we know the islands, blest; 

The isles of the crossless crown, 
Are hidden deep in the golden w^est; 

The west, where the sun goes down. 

We have passed the rebel gates of youth; 

The gates with the battered post. 
And dined this side, in solemn sooth. 

With Ambition for our host, 
But the lights must fade behind each feast — 

To fickle is all renown; 
But there is no serpent's trail, nor beast. 

In the west, where the sun goes down. 



Three T^ra^ers 

One prayed for knowledge and the world 
Came to him, kneeling at his feet 
A little space, and yet, his face 
Lacked that repose w^hich men call sw^eet. 
His name they bleizoned on unfurled. 
Breeze kissing banners; he was king; 
Crowned in their eye and presence by 
The ink horn's crown of w^ondering. 

One prayed for wisdom and all doubt 
Fled from him, and an angel came 
And took all dole from out his soul, 
Then whispered to him a new name. 



ns CHILD SLAVES 

And yet, with all fear barred from out 
Life's citadel, he knew the stress 
Which struggles on, from dawn to daw^n. 
With sorrow's sister, emptiness. 

But one passed by all crumbling shrines 
And lifting eyes to heaven above, 
Cried: "Father, just give to my trust 
The priceless jew^el of thy love." 
And lo! from w^here God's glory shines, 
A troop of power clad angels came 
His words to garb and point and barb 
And wing them with compelling flame. 



Give Me to Understand 

There may be lands beyond my sight 

And sounds beyond my ears; 
There may be day beyond this night 

And life beyond my years. 
Perhaps, somewhere, is heard to heed. 

The voice of those w^ho pray, 
But faith is weak and frail indeed. 

Since baby went away. 

When down the mystic ways of dream 

The young go, one by one, 
While time and age scarred halt, 'twould seem 

Some despite has been done. 
I know why I must wave my hand — 

Why I must quit the play. 
But I can never understand 

Why baby went away. 



AND OTHER POEMS 139 

Perhaps when first the morning mists 

Were mustered in the sky; 
His dead, some father stooped and kissed 

And wondered, as do I; 
And in that far, dim, morning land. 

Just as I do today, 
Cried: "Give me, now, to understand. 

Why baby went away." 

They tell me supplicate, but then, 

Before mere words had birth. 
The minds and throbbing hearts of men 

Were ageing with the earth — 
I have no w^ords at my command 

Wherewith to kneel and pray. 
Save these: "Give me to understand. 

Why baby went away." 



Be Nice to Me, / m Tired 

"Be nice to me, I'm tired," said a weary little boy. 

As he climbed upon a loving mother's knee; 

And as he laid his head upon her breast and closed his 

eyes, 
He whispered: "-1 am tired, be nice to me." — Chorus: 

Be nice to me, I'm tired; come kiss my eyelids down; 
Bright angels, waft to heaven this my plea; 
I'm weary of the countryside and weary of the town; 
I'm tired angels, O, be nice to me. 



140 CHILD SLAVES 

"Be nice to me, I'm tired," said a lover, as he scanned 

His sweetheart's face, for signs which lovers see; 

She knew the past but thrust it behind her when he 

said; 
I'm tired, sweetheart. O, be nice to me." — Chorus: 

"Be nice to me, I'm tired," a strong man said to Fate, 

For he had battled long and manfully, 

Against strong tides and headwinds, now he could only 

say; 
"I'm tired, while I rest be nice to me." — Chorus: 

"Be nice to me, I'm tired," said an old man as he peered 
Into the shadows of eternity; 

"I have not run the race, perhaps, as nobly as I should; 
But, Father, I am tired, be nice to me." — Chorus: 



Goodh^ 



Goodby; the w^ord is as sweetly sad, 

As when, in Eden, long years ago, 

'Twas uttered; for hearts are still the same 

And the self-same passions surge to and fro. 

We meet and pass on a shoreless sea. 

With currents running here and there; 

We see strange sights in its troubled depths 

And hear strange sounds in the circling air. 

Goodby; a clasp of the hand and then 
A longing for rest for weary feet — 
Goodby; the marah I shall forget, 
And retain no memories, save the sweet. 



AND OTHER POEMS 141 

I have no place in my heart of hearts, 

For the poisoned arrow, nor scorpion sting; 

I guard my treasure chamber close. 

Lest these should jostle some worthy thing. 

Goodby; there are many of you I love. 

For you are spirit-born kin of mine. 

And around the moments when soul met soul. 

Will memories tendrils ever twine. 

I've no regrets that I spoke your barks — 

Regrets are vapid things at best — 

Goodby — Goodby— we meet again 

Beyond the stillness of the west. 



Wanderlust 

Who will may wait a sire's entail; 

For the peace of the roof tree pray; 
But I thank my God for the lust of the trail. 

That calls me away, away. 

I have no heart for the conquered land. 

Chained fast to the chariot wheel 
Of forces no man may understand — 

He may only dimly feel. 
The camp-fire brightening the sodden lea. 

Where a former fire has glowed. 
Holds none of the welcome warmth for me. 

That I find on the fireless road. 

Let those who will walk a hedged way, 

1 yearn to the wider range; 
Let me follow the trail, to the end of my day. 

And heaven will not seem strange. 



142 CHILD SLAVES 



The Yul^on 



In the frost shot core of the frozen north; 
The north where the floes are fed; 
The north where wild blasts are wed; 

It has its rise 

Neath the cold, gray eyes 

Of the Artie skies 

And its lullabies 
Are the groans of the glacier's bed — 
The glacier that grinds the north. 

It still laps barren shores, although 

Since time from Eternity 

Was carved, it has sought the sea — 

What might it have done 

Had the w^ealth of sun 

Of the Amazon 

O'er the wild Yukon 
Been showered, from infancy; 
Instead of ice and snow. 



^ Fragment 

O the bleak and bitter years. 

With their cares, and fears, and tears; 

O the dour and dusty highways, leading down. 

From the far; world-roofing hills. 

Where the soul lifts, fills and thrills. 

To the mart infested pavement of the town. 



AND OTHER POEMS 143 

O the maddened rush to gain 

Idle things, entrain with pain; 

O the greed which grovels ever near the clod; 

For the pride of the stick and stone 

Of its own; for which alone 

It has bartered the eternal things of God. 

O the ineffectual days, 

Witless ways and venal praise; 

Hoarded in the tangy treasury of the earth; 

For the brother of the mole. 

Lacking soul, and in his dole. 

Dying in the circle of a single birth. 



Trinity 

There is calm, deep calm, some place on earth. 

Like that which brooded o'er 
The voiceless void, ere the stars had birth. 

In the unmarked stretch, before 
The World touched luminous mist and hurled 

In fore-appointed ways, 
Within unbounded space, a world 

To measures nights and days. 

There is rest someplace, like the ancient rest; 

There is somewhere quietude; 
Between the lines of the East and West, 

In the Hall of Solitude; 
Sweet rest, like he who bore the light 

Knew, ere ambition's lure 
Drew him from off his dazzling height 

To suffer and endure. 



144 CHILD SLAVES 

There is peace on the restless earth somewhere, 

With heahng in its train, 
That waits on the tired heart's wordless prayer 

And follows after pain; 
Sweet peace, that lifts the heart and thrills. 

With mildness girt around. 
Like that which was before the hills 

Flung back the valleys sound. 



Feudists 

There is war — there will never be aught else. 

Between the mammon sneer 
Of the cold, snow nurtured, Puritan 

And the thought of the Cavalier. 

"Fill thou my purse, lest I curse thee, Lordl" 

Is the cry of the Puritan; 
But the Cavalier only asks his God 

To give him the soul of a man. 

Let them sneer at the stain the shackles left; 

We would not trade that which 
We would were not, for the bigot's cowl 
And the gallows of the witch. 

They cannot forget the money they spent; 

Nor we the ones they killed — 
They could not forget the one, if they would; 

Nor the other we, if we willed. 

The days of chivalry are not dead; 

In the hearts of chivalrous men 
They still live on the Lord will find 

Them here, when he comes again. 



